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LIBRARY 

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Phone:  CI  4-0828 


LIBRARY   NOTES 


l^. 


A.  P.  RUSSELL 


yEW  EDITION,  REVISED  AND  ENLARGED 


THTBTEENTH    EDITION. 


IMfflE^MffiJa 


BOSTON 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN    AND   COMPANY 

Cbc  Hitjcrcitic  Iprcec,  Cnmbnliffc 

1891 


Copjrright,  1875  and  1879, 
By  ADDISON  P.  RUSSELL 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Ca^mbridge,  Mass.,  U.  S.  A. 
Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  St,  Company. 


CONTENTS 


-♦- 


FAGB 

I.    Insufficiency i 

II.    Extremes 33 

III.  Disguises 63 

IV.  Standards 90 

V.    Rewards 121 

VI.    Limits 1^7 

VII.    Incongruity 187 

VIII.    Mutations 214 

IX.    Paradoxes 240 

X.    Contrasts 270 

XI.    Types 295 

XII.    Conduct 325 

XIII.  Religion                 ........  357 


LIBRARY   NOTES. 


I. 

INSUFFICIENCY. 

It  was  well  said  by  some  one  that  "  in  every  object 
there  is  inexhaustible  meaning;  the  eye  sees  in  it 
what  the  eye  brings  means  of  seeing."  "  Each  one  sees 
what  he  carries  in  his  heart,"  said  Goethe.  "You  will 
find  poetry  nowhere,"  said  Joubert,  "  unless  you  bring 
some  with  you."  "Those  who  would  see  or  feel  the 
truth  of  the  anatomy  in  the  marble  must  bring  their 
knowledge  with  them."  "Don't  you  think  that  statue 
indecent?"  said  Boswell  to  Johnson.  "No,  sir,"  was 
the  reply,  "  but  your  remark  is."  Once,  we  are  told  by 
Hazlitt,  when  a  pedantic  coxcomb  was  crying  up  Raphael 
to  the  skies,  Northcote  could  not  help  saying,  "  If  there 
was  nothing  in  Raphael  but  what  you  can  see  in  him,  we 
should  not  now  have  been  talking  of  him."  Douglas  Jer- 
rold,  it  is  said,  disliked  the  theatre  behind  the  scenes, 
and  seldom  went  there  save  to  witness  a  rehearsal.  He 
would  generally  attend  on  the  first  night  of  the  perform- 
ance of  his  piece,  but  he  seldom  saw  the  same  piece 
twice.  His  idea,  as  realized,  generally  disgusted  him. 
He  saw  it  with  all  the  delicate  touches  rubbed  away,  — 
a  shadow,  or  a  vulgar  caricature.  His  quarrels  with  act- 
ors were  incessant,  because  they  would  take  their  idea 
and  not  his  idea  of  a  part.  La  Rochefoucauld,  in  his 
Maxims,  gives  us  a  picture,  not  of  human  nature,  but 
I 


2  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

of  its  selfishness.  "  He  works,"  said  Sterling,  "  like  a 
painter  who  paints  the  profile,  and  chooses  the  side  of  the 
face  in  which  the  eye  is  blind  and  deformed,  instead  of 
the  other,  which  is  unblemished.  Yet  the  picture  may 
be  a  most  accurate  copy."  So  do  we  all.  Those  of  us 
that  see  at  all  see  but  a  small  part  of  anything  at  a  time. 
Only  a  line  upon  the  column  is  distinctly  visible ;  all  the 
rest  is  hidden,  or  obscured  in  the  glaring  light  or  eclips- 
ing shadow.  A  man,  especially,  must  be  looked  at  all 
around,  within,  by  a  fair  light,  and  with  a  good  eye,  to  be 
seen  truly  or  judged  justly.  We  put  a  narrow  and  fine 
sight  upon  him  naturally,  and  can  hardly  avoid  estimat- 
ing him  meanly.  We  have  too  much  the  habit  of  Fuseli, 
who  preferred  beginning  his  sketch  of  the  human  figure 
at  the  lowest  point,  and  working  from  the  foot  upward. 
"  The  wisest  amongst  us,"  said  the  artist  and  critic,  Rich- 
ardson, "  is  a  fool  in  some  things,  as  the  lowest  amongst 
men  has  some  just  notions,  and  therein  is  as  wise  as  Soc- 
rates ;  so  that  every  man  resembles  a  statue  made  to 
stand  against  a  wall  or  in  a  niche  ;  on  one  side  it  is  a 
Plato,  an  Apollo,  a  Demosthenes  ;  on  the  other,  it  is  a 
rough,  unformed  piece  of  stone."  "  Both,"  said  Dr. 
Johnson  of  the  remarks  of  Lord  Orrery  and  Delany  on 
Swift,  "  were  right,  —  only  Delany  had  seen  most  of  the 
good  side.  Lord  Orrery  most  of  the  bad."  There  is  a 
curious  life  of  Tiberius,  with  two  title-pages,  both  taken 
from  historical  authorities  ;  two  characters  —  one  detest- 
able, the  other  admirable  —  of  one  and  the  same  person  ; 
made  up,  both,  of  recorded  facts.  "  We  ought  not,"  said 
La  Bruy^re,  "  to  judge  of  men  as  of  a  picture  or  statue, 
at  the  first  sight ;  there  is  a  mind  and  heart  to  be  searched; 
the  veil  of  modesty  covers  merit,  and  the  mask  of  hy- 
pocrisy disguises  malignity.  There  are  but  few  judges 
that  have  knowledge  to  discern  aright  to  pass  sentence  ; 
'tis  but  by  little  and  little,  and  perhaps  even  by  time  and 
occasion,  that  complete  virtue   or  perfect  vice   come  at 


INSUFFICIENCY.  3 

»ast  to  show  themselves."  "  A  man,"  said  Emerson,  "  is 
like  a  bit  of  Labrador  spar,  which  has  no  lustre  as  you 
turn  it  in  your  hand,  until  you  come  to  a  particular  angle  ; 
then  it  shows  deep  and  beautiful  colors."  What  you 
think  of  him  depends  so  much  on  how  you  look  at  him. 
As  a  creature  of  small  ways  and  little  achievements,  he 
seems  fit  only  for  "  stopping  a  bung-hole  ; "  as  an  embod- 
iment of  every  manly  trait  and  of  every  Christian  virtue, 
he  appears  indeed  "  a  noble  animal,  splendid  in  ashes, 
and  pompous  in  the  grave."  The  petty  tyrant  of  a  family, 
he  satirizes  Caesar ;  the  canting  bigot  of  the  church,  he 
brings  reproach  upon  religion.  Now  a  gentleman,  he 
makes  you  think  of  Sidney  ;  now  a  beast,  of  Swift's  revolt- 
ing Yahoo.  When  truly  humble  and  consciously  ignorant, 
he  hath  the  aspect  of  a  child  of  God ;  when  conceited, 
dogmatic,  aggressive,  all  the  forgotten  orthodox  teach- 
ings of  the  fate  of  the  hopeless  come  back  to  you  with 
the  force  of  apostolic  thunder.  As  the  splendid  immor- 
tal he  is  destined  to  be,  you  hasten  to  apotheosize  him  ; 
as  the  monster  he  sometimes  appears,  you  wonder  that 
he  exists.  Burns,  who  was  a  master  in  human  nature, 
characterized  woman  as  "  great  for  good,  or  great  for 
evil ;  when  not  an  angel,  she  's  a  devil."  "There  is  some- 
thing still  more  to  be  dreaded  than  a  Jesuit,"  said  Eugene 
Sue,  "and  that  is  a  Jesuitess."  It  seems  to  be  nearly 
impossible  to  be  moderate.  If  we  are  calm  or  deliberate 
enough  to  be  just,  we  are  almost  sure  to  be  indifferent. 
Our  ignorance,  our  education,  our  interests,  our  prejudices, 
blind  our  eyes,  darken  our  minds,  or  drive  us  to  violence. 
There  is  nothing  half  and  half  about  us.  The  little  that 
we  see,  we  see  so  differently  and  so  partially,  and  igno- 
rance finds  its  complement  in  feeling.  Dryden  said  of 
some  of  the  judges  of  his  day,  that,  right  or  wrong,  they 
always  decided  for  the  poor  against  the  rich  ;  and  he 
quoted  a  saying  of  Charles  II.,  that  the  crown  was  uni- 
formly worsted  in  every  case  which  was  heard  before  Sii 


4  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

Matthew  Hale.  "  The  eyes  of  critics,"  said  Landor, 
"whether  in  commending  or  carping,  are  both  on  one 
side,  like  a  turbot's."  "  Truth,  as  Humanity  knows  it," 
said  Bulwer,  "  is  not  what  the  schoohnen  call  it,  one  and 
indivisible ;  it  is  like  light,  and  splits  not  only  into  ele- 
mentary colors,  but  into  innumerable  tints.  Truth  with 
Raphael  is  not  the  same  as  truth  with  Titian  ;  truth  with 
Shakespeare  is  not  the  same  as  truth  with  Milton  ;  truth 
with  St.  Xavier  is  not  the  same  as  truth  with  Luther ; 
truth  with  Pitt  is  not  the  same  as  truth  with  Fox.  Each 
man  takes  from  life  his  favorite  truth,  as  each  man  takes 
from  light  his  favorite  color." 

Perhaps  that  which  astonishes  us  most,  when  we  fairly 
open  our  eyes  upon  the  world,  is  the  diversity  in  every- 
thing. Out  in  the  forest,  under  the  spreading  tree,  look- 
ing up  at  the  luxuriant  foliage,  you  may  not  think  of  the 
difference  between  the  leaves  ;  but  pull  down  a  limb,  and 
spend  an  hour  comparing  them  ;  you  find,  much  as  they 
resemble,  that  no  two  are  precisely  alike.  Examine  the 
plumage  of  the  owl  that  you  cruelly  brought  down  with 
your  rifle ;  every  feather  of  his  beautiful  dress  differs  from 
every  other ;  and,  what  is  more  remarkable,  every  fibre  of 
every  feather  is  another  feather,  still  more  delicate,  differ- 
ing from  every  other,  all  of  which  together  yield  to  the 
pressure  of  your  hand  like  floss  silk.  No  wonder  he  fell 
upon  the  mischievous  mole  or  mouse  as  noiselessly  as  the 
shadow  of  a  cloud.  Go  down  to  the  sea-shore ;  the  tide 
is  out ;  there  is  an  apparent  waste  of  white  sand,  a  dull 
extent  of  uniformity  ;  but  stretch  yourself  on  the  beach, 
which  the  innumerable  differing  waves  have  beaten  to 
incomparable  smoothness,  and  examine  leisurely,  wiih  a 
good  glass,  a  few  hundred  of  the  infinite  grains  which  you 
thought  to  be  the  same,  and  you  discover  that  they  differ, 
that  each  is  differently  shaped,  each  holds  the  light  differ- 
ently, and,  what  is  more  wonderful  than  all,  each  appears 
to  be  a  shell,  or  part  of  a  shell,  which  was  once  the  abode 


INSUFFICIENCY.  5 

of  a  creature-,  and  a  different  creature  from  every  other  in- 
habiting or  that  ever  inhabited  any  other  shell  of  the  ocean. 
Look  into  the  crowded  street ;  the  men  are  all  men ;  they 
all  walk  upright ;  they  might  wear  each  other's  clothes 
without  serious  inconvenience  ;  but  could  they  exchange 
souls  ?  *'  Clothe  me  as  you  will,"  said  Sancho,  "I  shall 
still  be  Sancho  Panza."  "The  soul  is  not  twin-born,  but 
the  only  begotten."  "  And  there  never  was  in  the  world," 
said  Montaigne,  "  two  opinions  alike,  no  more  than  two 
hairs  or  two  grains.  The  most  universal  quality  is  diver- 
sity." 

"  The  nerve-tissue,"  said  an  acute  physiologist,  "  is 
never  precisely  the  same  in  two  men  ;  the  blood  of  no  two 
men  is  precisely  alike  ;  the  milk  of  no  two  women  is  iden- 
tical in  composition  —  they  all  vary  (within  certain  limits), 
and  sometimes  the  variation  is  considerable.  It  is  in  this 
that  depends  what  we  call  the  difference  of  '  tempera- 
ment,' which  makes  one  twin  so  unlike  his  brother,  and 
makes  the  great  variety  of  the  human  race."  "  Give  Pro- 
fessor Owen  part  of  an  old  bone  or  a  tooth,  and  he  will 
on  the  instant  draw  you  the  whole  animal,  and  tell  you 
its  habits  and  propensities.  What  professor  has  ever  yet 
been  able  to  classify  the  wondrous  variety  of  human  char- 
acter ?  How  very  limited  as  yet  the  nomenclature  !  We 
know  there  are  in  our  moral  dictionary  the  religious,  the 
irreligious,  the  virtuous,  the  vicious,  the  prudent,  the  prof- 
ligate, the  liberal,  the  avaricious,  and  so  on  to  a  few 
names,  but  the  comprehended  varieties  under  these  terms 
—  their  mixtures,  which,  like  colors,  have  no  names  — 
their  strange  complexities  and  intertwining  of  virtues  and 
dees,  graces  and  deformities,  diversified  and  mingled,  and 
making  individualities  —  yet  of  all  the  myriads  of  man- 
kind that  ever  were,  not  one  the  same,  and  scarcely  alike  , 
how  little  way  has  science  gone  to  their  discovery,  and 
to  mark  their  delineation  !  A  few  sounds,  designated  by 
a  few  letters,  speak  all  thought,  all  literature,  that  ever  was 


6  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

or  will  be.  The  variety  is  infinite,  and  ever  creating  a 
new  infinite  ;  and  there  is  some  such  mystery  in  the  end- 
less variety  of  human  character." 

Cicero  gives  an  account  of  a  man  who  could  distinguish 
marks  of  difference  amongst  eggs  so  well,  that  he  never 
mistook  one  for  another  ;  and,  having  many  hens,  could 
tell  which  laid  a  particular  egg. 

bocrates  asked  Menon  what  virtue  was  ?  "  There  is," 
said  Menon,  "  the  virtue  of  a  man  and  of  a  woman,  of  a 
magistrate  and  of  a  private  person,  of  an  old  man  and 
of  a  child."  "Very  well,"  said  Socrates,  "we  were  in 
quest  of  virtue,  and  thou  hast  brought  us  a  whole  swarm." 

"What,"  asks  the  great  French  essayist,  "have  our 
legislators  got  by  culling  out  a  hundred  thousand  particu- 
lar cases,  and  annexing  to  these  a  hundred  thousand  laws  ? 
The  number  holds  no  manner  of  proportion  with  the  in- 
fi.nite  diversity  of  human  actions ;  the  multiplication  of  our 
inventions  will  never  arrive  at  the  variety  of  examples  ; 
add  to  them  a  hundred  times  as  many  more  ;  it  will  not, 
nevertheless,  ever  happen,  that,  of  events  to  come,  there 
shall  any  one  fall  out  that,  in  this  great  number  of  thou- 
sands of  events  so  chosen  and  recorded,  shall  find  any  one 
to  which  it  can  be  so  exactly  coupled  and  compared,  that 
there  will  not  remain  some  circumstance  and  diversity 
which  will  require  a  variety  of  judgment." 

"  Some  ask,"  says  La  Bruyere,  "  why  mankind  in  gen- 
eral don't  compose  but  one  nation,  and  are  not  contented 
to  speak  one  language,  to  live  under  the  same  laws,  to 
agree  amongst  themselves  in  the  same  customs  and  wor- 
ship :  for  my  part,  seeing  the  contrariety  of  their  inclina- 
tions, tastes,  and  sentiments,  I  wonder  to  see  seven  or 
eight  persons  live  under  the  same  roof,  within  the  same 
walls,  and  make  a  single  family." 

Molecular  philosophy  shows  interspaces  betwixt  atom 
and  atom,  differing  atoms,  which  can  hardly  be  said  to 
touch ;  so  bodies  are  formed,  and  so  society  and  public 


INSUFFICIENCY.  7 

opinion  are  compounded.     "  The  single  individual  is  to 
collective  humanity,"  says  Alger,  "  as  the  little  column 
of  mercury  in  the  barometer  is  to  the  whole  atmosphere. 
They  balance  each  other,  although  infinitely  incommen- 
surate.    A  quicksilver  sea,  two  and  a  half  feet  deep,  cov- 
ering the  globe,  would  weigh  five  thousand  million  tons. 
That  is  the  heft  of  the  air,  —  that  transparent  robe  of 
blue  gauze  which  outsags  the  Andes  and  the  Alps.     It?, 
pressure  is  unfelt,  yet  if  that  pressure  were  annulled  all 
the  water  on  the  earth  would  immediately  fly  into  vapor. 
Public   opinion   is    the    atmosphere   of   society,    without 
which  the  forces  of  the  individual  would  collapse  and 
all  the  institutions  of  society  fly  into  atoms."     Common 
sense  has  been  defined  to  be  the  "  average  intellect  and 
oonscience  of  the  civilized  world,  —  that  portion  of  intel- 
ligence, morality,  and  Christianity',  which  has  been  prac- 
tically embodied  in  life  and  active  power.     It  destroys 
pretense  and  quackery,  and  tests  genius  and  heroism.    It 
changes  with  the  progress  of  society ;  persecutes  in  one 
age  what  it  adopts  in  the  next ;  its  martyrs  of  the  six- 
teenth century  are  its  precedents  and  exponents  of  the 
nineteenth  ;  and  a  good  part  of  the  common  sense  of  an 
elder  day  is  the  common  nonsense  of  our  own." 

"  The  history  of  human  opinions,"  said  Voltaire,  "  is 
scarcely  anything  more  than  the  history  of  human  er- 
rors." 

John  Foster,  in  one  of  his  thoughtful  essays,  has  this 
suggestive  passage  :  "  If  a  reflective,  aged  man  were  to 
find  at  the  bottom  of  an  old  chest  —  where  it  had  lain 
forgotten  fifty  years  —  a  record  which  he  had  written  of 
himself  when  he  was  young,  simply  and  vividly  describ- 
ing his  whole  heart  and  pursuits,  and  reciting  verbatim 
many  passages  of  the  language  which  he  sincerely  ut- 
tered, would  he  not  read  it  with  more  wonder  than  almost 
eveiy  other  writing  could  at  his  age  inspire  ?  He  would 
half  lose  the  assurance  of  his  identity,  under  the  impres- 


8  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

sion  of  this  immense  dissimilarity.  It  would  seem  as  if 
it  must  be  the  tale  of  the  juvenile  days  of  some  ancestor, 
with  whom  he  had  no  connection  but  that  of  name." 
Said  Swift,  "  If  a  man  would  register  all  his  opinions 
upon  love,  politics,  religion,  learning,  etc.,  beginning  from 
his  youth,  and  so  go  on  to  old  age,  what  a  bundle  of  in- 
consistencies and  contradictions  would  appear  at  last." 
Says  Montaigne,  "  Never  did  two  men  make  the  same 
judgment  of  the  same  thing;  and  'tis  impossible  to  find 
two  opinions  exactly  alike,  not  only  in  several  men,  but 
in  the  same  men,  at  different  times."  Says  Pope,  "  What 
is  every  year  of  a  wise  man's  life  but  a  censure  or  critique 
on  the  past  ?  Those  whose  date  is  the  shortest  live  long 
enough  to  laugh  at  one  half  of  it ;  the  boy  despises  the 
infant ;  the  man,  the  boy ;  the  philosopher,  both  ;  and 
the  Christian,  all."  Diet,  health,  the  weather,  affairs,  — 
a  thousand  things,  —  determine  our  views.  "  I  knew  a 
witty  physician,"  says  Emerson,  "  who  found  the  creed 
in  the  biliary  duct,  and  used  to  affirm  that  if  there  was 
disease  in  the  liver,  the  man  became  a  Calvinist,  and  if 
that  organ  was  sound,  he  became  a  Unitarian."  Vol- 
taire declared  that  the  fate  of  a  nation  had  often  de- 
pended on  the  good  or  bad  digestion  of  a  prime  minis- 
ter ;  and  Motley  holds  that  the  gout  of  Charles  V. 
changed  the  destinies  of  the  world.  Our  views  change 
so  often  that  the  writer  who  would  be  consistent  would 
never  write  at  all.  The  sentence  that  would  express  his 
thought  at  one  time  would  fail  at  another.  Alteration 
would  only  confuse.  An  attempt  to  find  words  to  ex-  ■ 
press  his  thoughts  upon  any  one  thing  at  all  times 
would  be  given  up  in  despair.  Voltaire  once  praised 
another  writer  very  heartily  to  a  third  person.  "  It  is  very 
strange,"  was  the  reply,  "  that  you  speak  so  well  of  him, 
for  he  says  you  are  a  charlatan."  "  Oh,"  replied  Voltaire, 
'  I  think  it  very  likely  that  both  of  us  are  mistaken." 
A  day  or  two  after  the  production  of  one  of  Sheridan's 


INSUFFICIENCY.  9 

comedies,  a  friend  met  the  author,  and  told  him  he  had 
seen  Cumberland  at  the  theatre  on  its  representation. 
"Ah,  well,"  replied  Sheridan,  ''What  did  he  say  to 
it  ?  "  "  He  was  n't  seen  to  smile  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end  of  the  comedy,"  said  the  friend.  "  Come,  now, 
that's  ver)' ungrateful  of  him,"  retorted  Sheridan,  "for 
I  went  to  see  his  tragedy  the  other  evening,  and  laughed 
through  the  whole  of  it."  Smith  gives  an  account  of  a 
lady  in  weeds  for  her  husband  who  came  drooping  like  a 
willow  to  Nollekens,  the  sculptor,  desiring  a  monument, 
and  declaring  that  she  did  not  care  what  money  was  ex- 
pended on  the  memory  of  one  she  loved  so.  "  Do  what 
you  please,  but,  oh,  do  it  quickly  !  "  were  her  paiting 
orders.  Nollekens  went  to  work,  made  the  design,  fin- 
ished the  model,  and  began  to  look  for  a  block  of  marble 
to  carve  it  from,  when  in  dropped  the  lady ;  she  had  been 
absent  some  three  months.  "  Poor  soul,"  said  the  sculp- 
tor, when  she  was  announced,  "  I  thought  she  would 
come  soon,  but  I  am  ready."  The  lady  came  light  of 
foot,  and  lighter  of  look.  "  Ah,  how  do  you  do,  Mr.  Nol- 
lekens ?  Well,  you  have  not  commenced  the  model  ?  " 
"  Ay,  but  I  have,  though,"  returned  the  sculptor,  "  and 
there  it  stands,  finished  !  "  "  There  it  is,  indeed,"  sighed 
the  lady,  throwing  herself  into  a  chair;  they  looked  at 
each  other  for  a  minute's  space  or  so  —  she  spoke  first ; 
"These,  my  good  friend,  are,  I  know,  early  days  for  this 
little  change,"  —  she  looked  at  her  dress,  from  which  the 
early  profusion  of  crape  had  disappeared,  —  "  but  since 
I  saw  you,  I  have  met  with  an  old  Roman  acquaintance 
of  yours  who  has  made  me  an  offer,  and  I  don't  know 
how  he  would  like  to  see  in  our  church  a  monument  of 
such  expense  to  my  late  husband.  Indeed,  on  second 
thought,  it  would  be  considered  quite  enough  if  I  got  our 
mason  to  put  up  a  mural  tablet,  and  that,  you  know,  he 
can  cut  very  prettily."  "  My  charge,  madam,  for  the 
model,"   said  the  sculptor,    "  is  one   hundred  guineas." 


lO  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

"  Enormous  !  enormous  !  "  said  the  lady,  but  drew  out 
her  purse,  and  paid  it.  The  mutability  of  human  nature ! 
Change,  change  is  the  rule,  Flaxman,  when  he  was  in 
Rome,  lived  at  a  sort  of  chocolate  house  kept  by  three 
girls  who  were  so  elegant  as  to  be  called  "  the  Graces." 
They  lived  to  be  so  old  that  they  were  called  "  the  Fu- 
ries." A  distinguished  painter  has  said,  that  often  while 
you  are  looking  at  a  face,  and  though  you  perceive  no 
tlifference  in  the  features,  yet  you  find  they  have  under- 
gone a  total  alteration  of  expression.  "  I  have  seen  sev- 
eral pictures  of  Garrick,"  said  Macaulay,  "  none  resem- 
bling another,  and  I  have  heard  Hannah  More  speak  of 
the  extraordinary  variety  of  countenance  by  which  he  was 
distinguished."  "  I  wish  the  world,  James,"  said  Chris- 
topher North  to  the  Ettrick  Shepherd,  "  would  stand  still 
"or  some  dozen  years  —  till  I  am  at  rest.  It  seems  as 
if  the  very  earth  itself  were  undergoing  a  vital  change. 
Nothing  is  unalterable,  except  the  heaven  above  my  head, 
and  even  it,  James,  is  hardly,  methinks,  at  times,  the  same 
as  in  former  days  or  nights.  There  is  not  much  differ- 
ence in  the  clouds,  James,  but  the  blue  sky,  I  must  con- 
fess, ,s  not  quite  so  very  blue  as  it  was  sixty  years  since; 
and  the  sun,  although  still  a  glorious  luminary,  has  lost 
a  leetle  —  of  his  lustre."  Gilbert  White,  in  his  Natural 
History  of  Selborne,  says  he  saw  a  cock-bullfinch  in  a 
cage,  which  had  been  caught  in  the  fields  after  it  was 
come  to  its  "^uU  colors.  In  about  a  year  it  began  to  look 
dingy ;  and  blackening  each  succeeding  year,  it  became 
coal-black  at  the  end  of  four.  Its  chief  food  was  hemp 
seed.  Such  influence  has  food  on  the  color  of  animals ! 
Darwin,  in  his  Voyage,  says  that  the  wild  cattle  in  East 
Falkland  Island,  originally  the  same  stock,  differ  much  in 
color;  and  that  in  different  parts  of  that  one  small  island, 
different  colors  predominate.  He  remarked  that  the  dif- 
ference in  the  prevailing  colors  was  so  obvious,  that  in 
looking  at  the  herds  from  a  point  near  Point  Pleasant,  they 


INSUFFICIENCY.  U 

appeared  from  a  long  distance  like  black  spots,  whilst 
south  of  Choiseul  Sound  they  appeared  like  white  spots 
on  the  hill-sides.  Round  Mount  Usborne,  at  a  height  of 
one  thousand  to  fifteen  hundred  feet  above  the  sea,  about 
half  of  some  of  the  herds  are  mouse  or  lead  colored. 
"From  the  westward  till  you  get  to  the  river  Adur,"  o!> 
served  White,  "all  the  flocks  have  horns  and  smooth 
white  faces,  and  white  legs,  and  a  hornless  sheep  is  rarely 
to  be  seen ;  but  as  soon  as  you  pass  that  river  eastward, 
and  mount  Seeding  Hill,  all  the  flocks  at  once  become 
hornless,  or,  as  they  call  them,  poll-sheep ;  and  have, 
moreover,  black  faces,  with  a  white  tuft  of  wool  on  their 
foreheads,  and  speckled  and  spotted  legs,  so  that  you 
would  think  that  the  flocks  of  Laban  were  pasturing  on 
one  side  of  the  stream,  and  the  variegated  breed  of  his 
son-in-law,  Jacob,  were  cantoned  along  on  the  other." 
Youatt  speaks  of  two  flocks  of  Leicester  sheep  which 
have  been  purely  bred  from  the  original  stock  of  Mr. 
Bakewell  for  more  than  fifty  years.  There  is  not  a  sus- 
picion existing  in  the  mind  of  any  one  at  all  acquainted 
with  the  subject,  that  the  owner  of  either  of  them  has 
deviated  in  any  one  instance  from  the  pure  blood  of 
Mr,  Bakewell's  flock,  and  yet  the  difference  between  the 
sheep  possessed  by  these  two  gentlemen  is  so  great  that 
they  have  the  appearance  of  being  quite  different  varie- 
ties. "  We  may,  in  truth,"  said  Voltaire,  "  be  naturally 
and  aptly  resembled  to  a  river,  all  whose  waters  pass 
away  in  perpetual  change  and  flow.  It  is  the  same  river 
as  to  its  bed,  its  banks,  its  source,  its  mouth,  everything, 
in  short,  that  is  not  itself ;  but  changing  every  moment 
its  water,  which  constitutes  its  very  being,  it  has  no  iden- 
tity ;  there  is  no  sameness  belonging  to  the  river."  Said 
Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  long  before  Voltaire,  "  There  is  not 
one  drop  of  the  same  water  in  the  Thames  that  ran  down 
by  Whitehall  yesternight ;  yet  no  man  will  deny  but  that 
it  is  the  same  river  that  was  i*"  Qjeen  Elizabeth's  time, 


12  LIBRARY    NOTES. 

as  long  as  it  is  supplied  from  the  same  common  stock, 
the  sea." 

Lowell,  in  one  of  his  critical  essays,  says  that  "  all 
men  are  interested  in  Montaigne  in  proportion  as  all 
men  find  more  of  themselves  in  him  ;  and  all  men  see 
but  one  image  in  the  glass  which  the  greatest  of  poets 
holds  up  to  nature,  —  an  image  which  at  once  stanles 
and  charms  with  its  familiarity."  Montaigne  himself  says, 
"  Nature,  that  we  may  not  be  dejected  with  the  sight  of 
our  deformities,  has  wisely  thrust  the  action  of  seeing 
outward."  "Know  thyself,"  that  Apollo  caused  to  be 
written  on  the  front  of  his  temple  at  Delphi,  appeared  to 
him  contradictory.  We  are  vain  of  our  knowledge,  vain 
of  our  virtue,  vain  of  everything  that  pertains  to  us. 
Reading  La  Rochefoucauld's  Maxims  at  twenty,  one  is  a 
little  surprised  that  the  first  and  longest  should  be  upon 
self-love  ;  at  forty,  one  is  not  astonished  at  the  rank  and 
importance  it  has  in  the  philosopher's  system.  "  In 
vain,"  says  Xavier  de  Maistre,  "  are  looking-glasses  mul- 
tiplied around  us  which  reflect  light  and  truth  with  geo- 
metrical exactness.  As  soon  as  the  rays  reach  our  vision 
and  paint  us  as  we  are,  self-love  slips  its  deceitful  prism 
between  us  and  our  image,  and  presents  a  divinity  to  us. 
And  of  all  the  prisms  that  have  existed  since  the  first 
that  came  from  the  hands  of  the  immortal  Newton,  none 
has  possessed  so  powerful  a  refractive  force,  or  produced 
s  ich  pleasing  and  lively  colors,  as  the  prism  of  self-love. 
Now,  seeing  that  ordinary  looking-glasses  record  the  truth 
in  vain,  and  that  they  cannot  make  men  see  their  own 
imperfections,  every  one  being  satisfied  with  his  face, 
what  would  a  moral  mirror  avail  ?  Few  people  would 
look  at  it,  and  no  one  would  recognize  himself."  "  Oh, 
the  incomparable  contrivance  of  Nature,"  exclaims  Eras- 
mus, "  who  has  ordered  all  things  in  so  even  a  method 
that  wherever  she  has  been  less  bountiful  in  her  gifts, 
there  she  makes  it  up  with   a  larger  dose  of  self-love, 


INSUFFICIENCY.  1 3 

which  supplies  the  former  defects,  and  makes  all  even." 
•'Could  all  mankind,"  says  John  Norris,  "lay  claim  to 
that  estimate  which  they  pass  upon  themselves,  there 
would  be  little  or  no  difference  betwixt  laps'd  and  per- 
fect humanity,  and  God  might  again  review  his  image 
with  paternal  complacency,  and  still  pronounce  it  good.' 
"  Blinded  as  they  are  as  to  their  true  character  by  self- 
love,  every  man,"  says  Plutarch,  "  is  his  own  first  and 
chiefest  flatterer,  prepared  therefore  to  welcome  the  flat- 
terer from  the  outside,  who  only  comes  confirming  the 
verdict  of  the  flatterer  within."  It  was  the  habit  of  Sir 
Godfrey  Kneller  to  say  to  his  sitter,  "  Praise  me,  sir, 
praise  me :  how  can  I  throw  any  animation  into  your 
face  if  you  don't  choose  to  animate  me .?  "  "  I  have 
heard,"  says  Bulwer,  in  one  of  his  essays,  "  that  when  the 
late  Mr.  Kean  was  performing  in  some  city  of  the  United 
States,  he  came  to  the  manager  at  the  end  of  the  third 
act  and  said,  '  I  can't  go  on  the  stage  again,  sir,  if  the 
pit  keeps  its  hands  in  its  pockets.  Such  an  audience 
would  extinguish  yEtna.'  The  audience  being  notified 
by  the  manager  of  the  determination  of  the  actor,  proved 
hearty  enough  in  its  applause.  As  the  favor  of  the  au- 
dience rose,  so  rose  the  genius  of  the  actor,  and  the  con- 
tagion of  their  own  applause  redoubled  their  enjoyment 
of  the  excellence  it  contributed  to  create."  "Vanity," 
says  Pascal,  "  has  taken  so  firm  a  hold  on  the  heart  of 
man,  that  a  porter,  a  hodman,  a  turnspit,  can  talk  greatly 
of  himself,  and  is  for  having  his  admirers.  Philosophers 
who  write  of  the  contempt  of  glory  do  yet  desire  the 
glory  of  writing  well ;  and  those  who  read  their  compo- 
sitions would  not. lose  the  glory  of  having  read  them. 
We  are  so  presumptuous  as  that  we  desire  to  be  known 
to  all  the  world  ;  and  even  to  those  who  are  net  to  come 
into  the  world  till  we  have  left  it.  And,  at  the  same 
time,  we  are  so  little  and  vain  as  that  the  esteem  of  five 
or  six  persons  about  us  is  enough  to  content  and  amuse 


14  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

US."  "  We  censure  others,"  says  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
"  but  as  they  disagree  from  that  humor  which  we  fancy 
laudable  in  ourselves,  and  commend  others  but  for  that 
wherein  they  seem  to  quadrate  and  consent  with  us.  So 
that  in  conclusion,  all  is  but  that  we  all  co.-:demn,  self- 
love."  We  think  ourselves  of  great  importance  in  the 
eyes  of  others,  when  we  are  only  so  in  our  own.  Calmly 
considering  it,  what  can  be  more  astonishing  than  vanity 
in  a  middle-aged  person  ?  Know  as  much  as  it  is  possi- 
ble for  a  human  being  to  know  in  this  world,  he  cannot 
know  enough  to  justify  him  in  being  vain  of  his  knowl- 
edge. Good  as  it  is  possible  for  a  human  being  to  be, 
he  cannot  be  good  enough  to  excuse  a  conceit  of  his 
goodness.  Yet  how  common  it  is  for  full-grown  igno- 
rance to  have  conceit  of  wisdom,  and  for  ordinary  virtue 
to  assume  the  airs  of  saintship.  How  we  shall  one  day 
wonder,  looking  back  at  the  world  we  have  left,  at  the 
nearly  invisible  mites,  like  ourselves,  tossing  their  heads 
in  pride,  and  gathering  their  skirts  in  self-righteousness, 
that  we  were  ever  as  vain  and  shameless  as  they,  and 
that  the  little  things  of  life  ever  so  engrossed  us.  Alas, 
to  learn  and  unlearn  is  our  fate  ;  to  gather  as  we  climb 
the  hill  of  life,  to  scatter  as  we  descend  it :  empty-handed 
alike  at  the  end  and  at  the  beginning. 

"  Youth's  heritage  is  hope,  but  man's 
Is  retrospect  of  shattered  plans, 
And  doubtful  glances  cast  before." 

"All  the  world,  all  that  we  are,  and  all  that  we  have, 
our  bodies  and  our  souls,  our  actions  and  our  sufferinsrs. 
our  conditions  at  home,  our  accidents  abroad,  our  many 
sins,  and  our  seldom  virtues,"  says  Jeremy  Taylor,  "  aie 
as  so  many  arguments  to  make  our  souls  dwell  low  in  the 
valleys  of  humility."  We  are  not  what  we  think  our- 
selves, nor  are  other  people  what  we  think  them,  else 
this  were  a  different  world.  We  know  not  ourselves,  ror 
others,  nor  anything,  so  well  as  to  avoid  misapprehend- 


INSUFFICIENCY.  Ij 

ing  everything.  Our  condition  is  ignorance  and  humility, 
and  better  it  were  if  we  kept  modestly  in  our  paths. 
Whatever  we  do  or  are,  we  are  of  chief  importance  to  our- 
selves. Northcote  said  that  he  often  blamed  himself  for 
uttering  what  might  be  thought  harsh  things  ;  and  that  on 
mentioning  this  once  to  Kemble,  and  saying  it  sometimes 
kept  him  from  sleep,  after  he  had  been  out  in  company, 
Kemble  replied,  "  Oh,  you  need  not  trouble  yourself  so 
much  about  them  ;  others  never  think  of  them  after- 
ward." "  I  see  you  will  not  believe  it,"  said  Sydney 
Smith,  "but  I  was  once  very  shy."  "Were  you,  indeed, 
Mr.  Smith  ?  how  did  you  cure  yourself  ?  "  "  Why,  it  was 
not  very  long  before  I  made  two  very  useful  discoveries  : 
First,  that  all  mankind  were  not  solely  employed  in  ob- 
serving me  (a  belief  that  all  young  people  have)  ;  and 
next,  that  shamming  was  of  no  use  ;  that  the  world  was 
very  clear-sighted,  and  soon  estimated  a  man  at  his  just 
value.  This  cured  me,  and  I  determined  to  be  natural, 
and  let  the  world  find  me  out."  "  The  world,"  says 
Thackeray,  "  can  pry  out  everything  about  us  which  it 
has  a  mind  to  know.  But  there  is  this  consolation,  which 
men  will  never  accept  in  their  own  cases,  that  the  world 
does  n't  care.  Consider  the  amount  of  scandal  it  has 
been  forced  to  hear  in  its  time,  and  how  weary  it  must  be 
of  that  kind  of  intelligence.  You  are  taken  to  prison 
and  fancy  yourself  indelibly  disgraced?  You  are  bank- 
rupt under  odd  circumstances  ?  You  drive  a  queer  bar- 
gain with  your  friend  and  are  found  out,  and  imagine  the 
world  will  punish  you  ?  Pshaw !  Your  shame  is  only  van- 
ity. Go  and  talk  to  the  world  as  if  nothing  had  hap- 
pened, and  nothing  has  happened.  Tumble  down ;  brush 
the  mud  off  your  clothes ;  appear  with  a  smiling  counte- 
nance, and  nobody  cares.  Do  you  suppose  society  is  go- 
ing to  take  out  its  pocket-handkerchief  and  be  inconsol- 
able when  you  die  ?  Why  should  it  care,  very  much,  then, 
whether  your  worship  graces  yourself  or  disgraces  your- 


l6  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

self  ?  Whatever  happens,  it  talks,  meets,  jokes,  yawns, 
has  its  dinner,  pretty  much  as  before."  Depend  upon  it, 
the  world  will  not  hunt  you,  nor  concern  itself  much 
about  you.  If  you  want  its  favors  you  must  keep  yourself 
in  its  eye.  Cicero  left  Sicily  extremely  pleased  with  the 
success  of  his  administration,  and  flattered  himself  that 
all  Rome  was  celebrating  his  praises,  and  that  the  people 
would  readily  grant  him  everything  that  he  desired  ;  in 
which  imagination  he  landed  at  Puteoli,  a  considerable 
port  adjoining  to  Baiae,  the  chief  seat  of  pleasure  in  Italy, 
where  there  was  a  perpetual  resort  of  all  the  rich  and  the 
great,  as  well  for  the  delights  of  its  situation  as  for  the 
use  of  its  baths  and  hot  waters.  But  here,  as  he  himself 
pleasantly  tells  the  story,  he  was  not  a  little  mortified  by 
the  first  friend  whom  he  met,  who  asked  him  how  long  he 
had  left  Rome,  and  what  news  there,  when  he  answered 
that  he  came  from  the  provinces.  "  From  Africk,  I  sup- 
pose," says  another;  and  upon  his  replying,  with  some 
indignation,  "  No  ;  I  come  from  Sicily,"  a  third,  who 
stood  by,  and  had  a  mind  to  be  thought  wiser,  said  pres- 
ently, "  How  ?  did  you  not  know  that  Cicero  was  quaestor 
of  Syracuse  ? "  Upon  which,  perceiving  it  in  vain  to  be 
angry,  he  fell  into  the  humor  of  the  place,  and  made  him- 
self one  of  the  company  who  came  to  the  waters.  This 
mortification  gave  some  little  check  to  his  ambition,  or 
taught  him  rather  how  to  apply  it  more  successfully ;  and 
did  him  more  good,  he  says,  than  if  he  had  received  all 
the  compliments  that  he  expected  ;  for  it  made  him  re- 
flect that  the  people  of  Rome  had  dull,  ears,  but  quick 
eyes ;  and  that  it  was  his  business  to  keep  himself  always 
in  their  sight ;  nor  to  be  so  solicitous  how  to  make  them 
hear  of  him,  as  to  make  them  see  him  :  so  that,  from  this 
moment,  he  resolved  to  stick  close  to  the  forum,  and  to 
live  perpetually  in  the  view  of  the  city ;  nor  to  suffer 
either  his  porter  or  his  sleep  to  hinder  any  man's  access 
to  him. 


INSUFFICIENCY.  1/ 

As  capital  in  trade  must  be  constantly  turning  to  ac- 
cumulate, so  intelligence  must  be  constantly  in  use  to 
be  useful.  Its  value  and  utility  and  accuracy  can  only 
be  known  by  constantly  testing  it.  A  false  light  leads 
straight  into  the  bog,  and  misinformation  is  worse  than 
no  information  at  all.  Curiosity  has  need  to  be  on  ti{>- 
toe,  —  but  cautious,  nevertheless.  Southey  tells  a  story 
in  his  Doctor  which  the  Jesuit  Manuel  de  Vergara  used 
to  tell  of  himself.  When  he  was  a  little  boy  he  asked  a 
Dominican  friar  what  was  the  meaning  of  the  seventh 
commandment,  for  he  said  he  could  not  tell  what  com- 
mitting adultery  was.  The  friar,  not  knowing  how  to  an- 
swer, cast  a  perplexed  look  around  the  room,  and  think- 
ing he  had  found  a  safe  reply,  pointed  to  a  kettle  on  the 
fire,  and  said  the  commandment  meant  that  he  must  never 
put  his  hand  in  the  pot  while  it  was  boiling.  The  very 
next  day,  a  loud  scream  alarmed  the  family,  and  behold 
there  was  little  Manuel  running  about  the  room,  holding 
up  tiis  scalded  finger,  and  exclaiming,  "  Oh  dear !  oh 
dear !  I  've  committed  adultery  !  I  've  committed  adul- 
tery !  I  've  committed  adultery  !  " 

Men  are  most  apt  to  believe  what  they  least  under- 
stand. What  they  are  most  ready  to  talk  upon,  if  they 
knew  just  a  little  more  about,  they  would  be  dumb ;  or 
would  at  least  betray  in  some  degree  what  John  Buncle 
calls  "the  decencies  of  ignorance."  We  are  told  that 
shortly  after  the  shock  of  the  famous  earthquake  at  Tab 
cahuano,  a  great  wave  was  seen  from  the  distance  of 
three  or  four  miles,  approaching  in  the  middle  of  ,the  bay 
with  a  smooth  outline ;  but  along  the  shore  it  tore  up 
cottages  and  trees,  as  it  swept  onward  with  irresistible 
force.  At  the  head  of  the  bay  it  broke  in  a  feaiful  line 
of  white  breakers,  which  rushed  up  to  a  height  of  twenty- 
three  vertical  feet  above  the  highest  spring-tides.  7"he 
lower  orders  in  Talcahuano  thought  that  the  earthquake 
was  caused  by  some  old  Indiarr  women,  witches,  who,  two 

2 


l8  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

years  before,  being  offended,  stopped  the  volcano  of  An- 
tuco ! 

Bishop  Latimer  says  that  "  Master  More  was  once 
sent  in  commission  into  Kent,  to  help  to  try  out,  if  it 
might  be,  what  was  the  cause  of  Goodwin  Sands,  and  the 
shelf  that  stopped  up  Sandwich  Haven.  Among  others, 
came  in  before  him  an  old  man  with  a  white  head,  and 
one  that  was  thought  to  be  little  less  than  one  hundn-.d 
years  old.  Quoth  Master  More,  How  say  you  in  this 
matter  ?  What  think  you  to  be  the  cause  of  these  shelves 
and  fiats  that  stop  up  Sandwich  Haven  ?  Forsooth,  quoth 
he,  I  am  an  old  man.  I  think  that  Tenterden-steeple  is 
the  cause  of  Goodwin  Sands  ;  for  I  am  an  old  man,  sir, 
quoth  he,  and  I  may  remember  the  building  of  Tenterden- 
steeple,  and  I  may  remember  when  there  was  no  steeple 
at  all  there.  And  before  that  Tenterden-steeple  was  in 
building,  there  was  no  manner  of  speaking  of  any  flats 
or  sands  that  stopped  the  haven,  and  therefore  I  think 
that  Tenterden-steeple  is  the  cause  of  the  destroying  and 
decay  of  Sandwich  Haven  !  "  (The  centenarian's  reply 
crystallized  at  once  into  a  proverb  and  synonym  for  pop- 
ular ignorance ;  but  what  if  the  old  man  had  in  his  mind 
the  half  of  the  story  omitted  by  Latimer  —  that  the  ob- 
noxious steeple  had  been  built  by  a  bishop  with  fifty 
thousand  pounds  appropriated  to  build  a  breakwater  ! ) 

The  fox  that  Darwin  tells  us  about  in  his  Voyage  was 
literally  lost  in  the  presence  of  wonders.  "  In  the  even- 
ing," says  the  naturalist,  "  we  reached  the  island  of  Saa 
Pedro.  ,  In  doubling  the  point,  two  of  the  officers  landed, 
to  take  a  round  of  angles  with  the  theodolite.  A  fox  of 
it  kind  said  to  be  peculiar  on  the  island,  and  very  rare  in 
it,  was  sitting  on  the  rocks.  He  was  so  intently  absorbed 
In  watching  the  work  of  the  officers,  that  I  was  able,  bv 
quietly  walking  up  behind,  to  knock  him  on  the  head 
with  my  geological  hammer  !  " 

"We  on  this  globe,"   said  Voltaire,  speaking  of  the 


INSUFFICIENCY.  I9 

slender  acquaintance  of  Europe  with  the  Chinese  Empire, 
"we  on  this  globe  are  like  insects  in  a  garden  —  those 
who  live  on  an  oak  seldom  meet  those  who  pass  their 
short  lives  on  an  ash."  "  We  are  poor,  silly  animals," 
says  Horace  Walpole ;  "  we  live  for  an  instant  upon  a 
particle  of  a  boundless  universe,  and  are  much  like  a  but- 
terfly that  should  argue  about  the  nature  of  the  seasons, 
and  what  creates  their  vicissitudes,  and  does  not  exist  it- 
self to  see  an  annual  revolution  of  them."  When  Dr. 
Livingstone  returned  from  Africa,  after  a  stay  of  sixteen 
years  as  a  missionary,  he  was  induced  to  bring  with  him 
an  intelligent  and  affectionate  native,  Sekwebu,  who  had 
been  of  great  service  to  him.  When  they  parted  from 
their  friends  at  Kilemane,  the  sea  on  the  bar  was  fright- 
ful, even  to  the  seamen.  This  was  the  first  time  Sekwebu 
had  seen  the  sea.  As  the  terrible  breakers  broke  over 
them,  he  asked,  wonderingly,  "  Is  this  the  way  you  go  ? 
Is  this  the  way  you  go  ?  "  exclaiming,  "  What  a  strange 
country  is  this  —  all  water  together  !  " 

At  sea,  a  person's  eye  being  six  feet  above  the  sur- 
face of  the  water,  his  horizon  is  only  two  miles  and  four 
fifths  distant ;  yet  his  tongue  will  as  freely  wag  of  the 
world  as  if  it  were  all  spinning  under  his  eye.  We  freely 
discuss  the  ignorance  of  those  we  believe  to  be  less  in- 
telligent than  ourselves,  never  thinking  that  we  are  the 
cause  of  like  amusement  to  those  who  are  more  intelli- 
gent than  we  are.  Fewer  laugh  with  us  than  at  us.  The 
grades  are  so  many  that  contrast  is  more  natural  than 
comparison.  Unfortunately,  too,  it  is  only  in  the  descent 
tliat  we  can  see,  and  that  but  a  little  way.  We  know  it 
is  up,  up,  that  we  would  go,  but  the  rounds" of  the  ladder 
are  but  vaguely  visible.  But  a  small  part,  indeed,  we 
perceive  of  the  prodigious  sweep  from  the  lowest  igno- 
rance to  possible  intelligence.  Happily,  credulity  fills  the 
empty  spaces,  and,  setting  itself  up  for  original  wisdom, 
satisfies  us  with  ourselves  and  ours.     Thackeray,  in  one 


20  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

of  his  best  novels,  thus  satirically  screams  out  one  of  its 
uses  :  "  Oh,  Mr.  Pendennis  !  if  Nature  had  not  made 
that  provision  for  each  sex  in  the  credulity  of  the  other, 
which  sees  good  qualities  where  none  exist,  good  looks 
in  donkeys'  ears,  wit  in  their  numskulls,  and  music  in 
their  bray,  there  would  not  have  been  near  so  much  mar- 
rying and  giving  in  marriage  as  now  obtains,  and  as  is 
necessary  for  the  due  propagation  and  continuance  of  the 
noble  race  to  which  we  belong ! "  "I  desire  to  die," 
said  Horace  Walpole,  "  when  I  have  nobody  left  to  laugh 
mth  me.  I  have  never  yet  seen,  or  heard,  anything  seri- 
ous that  was  not  ridiculous Oh  !  we  are  ridiculous 

-inimals  ;  and  if  angels  have  any  fun  in  them,  how  we 
must  divert  them." 

"  I  had  taken,  when  a  child,"  says  Crabb  Robinson, 
•  a  great  fancy  to  the  Book  of  Revelation  ;  and  I  have 
Heard  that  I  asked  our  minister  to  preach  from  that  book, 
because  it  was  my  favorite.  '  And  why  is  it  your  favorite, 
Henry?'  'Because  it  is  so  pretty  and  easy  to  under- 
stand ! ' " 

Robert  Robinson,  a  witty  and  distinguished  clergyman 
in  the  last  century,  was  addressed  by  a  grave  brother, 
"  Friend,  I  never  heard  you  preach  on  the  Trinity."  "  Oh, 
( intend  to  do  so,"  was  the  reply,  "  as  soon  as  ever  I  un- 
derstand it ! " 

This  recalls  the  rebuke  of  a  clergyman  to  a  young  man, 
who  said  he  would  believe  nothing  which  he  could  not 
understand.  "  Then,  young  man,  your  creed  will  be  the 
shortest  of  any  man's  I  know." 

John  Foster's  observations  upon  an  atheist  you  remem- 
ber, —  "  one  of  the  most  daring  beings  in  the  creation,  a 
i:ontemner  of  God,  who  explodes  his  laws  by  denying  his 
'ixistence.  If  you  were  so  unacquainted  with  mankind 
I  hat  this  character  might  be  announced  to  you  as  a  rare  or 
singular  phenomenon,  your  conjectures,  till  you  saw  and 
heard  the  man,  at  the  nature  and  the  extent  of  the  dis- 


INSUFFICIENCY.  21 

cipline  through  which  he  must  have  advanced,  would  be 
led  toward  something  extraordinary.  And  you  might 
think  that  the  term  of  that  discipline  must  have  been 
very  long;  since  a  quick  train  of  impressions,  a  short 
series  of  mental  gradations,  within  the  little  space  of  a 
few  months  and  years,  would  not  seem  enough  to  have 
matured  such  an  awful  heroism.  Surely  the  creature  that 
thus  lifts  his  voice,  and  defies  all  invisible  power  within 
the  possibilities  of  infinity,  challenging  whatever  unknown 
being  may  hear  him,  was  not  as  yesterday  a  little  child, 
that  would  tremble  and  cry  at  the  approach  of  a  diminu- 
tive reptile.  But  indeed  it  is  heroism  no  longer,  if  he 
knows  theie  is  no  God.  The  wonder  then  turns  on  the 
great  process  by  which  a  man  could  grow  to  the  immense 
intelligence  that  can  know  that  there  is  no  God.  What 
ages  and  what  lights  are  requisite  for  this  attainment ! 
This  intelligence  involves  the  very  attributes  of  the  Di- 
vinity, while  a  God  is  denied.  For  unless  this  man  is 
omnipresent,  unless  he  is  at  this  moment  in  every  place 
in  the  universe,  he  cannot  know  but  there  may  be  in 
some  place  manifestations  of  a  Deity  by  which  even  he 
would  be  overpowered.  If  he  does  not  know  absolutely 
every  agent  in  the  universe,  the  one  that  he  does  not 
know  may  be  God.  If  he  is  not  in  absolute  possession 
of  all  the  propositions  that  constitute  universal  truth,  the 
one  which  he  wants  may  be,  that  there  is  a  God.  If  he 
does  not  know  everything  that  has  been  done  in  the  in)- 
measurable  ages  that  are  past,  some  things  may  have 
been  done  by  a  God.  Thus,  unless  he  knows  all  things, 
that  is,  precludes  another  Deity  by  being  one  himself,  he 
cannot  know  that  the  Being  whose  existence  he  rejects 
does  not  exist.  And  yet  a  man  of  ordinary  age  and  in- 
telligence may  present  himself  to  you  with  the  avowal  of 
being  thus  distinguished  from  the  crowd  !  " 

"  I  had  one  just  flogging,"  rays  Coleridge.     "  When  I 
was  about  thirteen  I  went  to  a  shoemaker  and  begged 


22  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

him  to  take  me  as  his  apprentice.  He,  being  an  honest 
man,  immediately  brought  me  to  Bowyer,  [the  head-master 
at  the  charity-school]  who  got  into  a  great  rage,  knocked 
me  down,  and  even  pushed  Crispin  rudely  out  of  the 
room.  Bowyer  asked  me  why  I  had  made  myself  such  a 
fool  ?  to  which  I  answered  that  I  had  a  great  desire  to 
be  a  shoemaker,  and  that  I  hated  the  thought  of  being 
a  clergyman.  '  Why  so  ? '  said  he.  '  Because,  to  tell  you 
the  truth,  sir,'  said  I,  '  I  am  an  infidel  ! '  For  this,  with- 
out more  ado,  Bowyer  flogged  me,  —  wisely,  as  I  think,  — 
soundly,  as  I  know.  Any  whining  or  sermonizing  would 
have  gratified  my  vanity,  and  confirmed  me  in  my  ab- 
surdity;  as  it  was,  I  was  laughed  at  and  got  heanily 
ashamed  of  my  folly."  At  a  supper-table,  when  Cottle 
was  present,  Coleridge  spoke  of  the  unutterable  horror 
he  felt,  when  a  son  of  Holcroft,  (the  atheist,)  a  boy  eight 
years  of  age,  came  up  to  him  and  said,  "  There  is  no 
God." 

"  It  is  one  thing  to  see  that  a  line  is  crooked,  and  an- 
other thing  to  be  able  to  draw  a  straight  one,"  said  Con- 
versation Sharp.  "  It  is  not  quite  so  easy  to  do  good  as 
those  may  imagine  who  never  tiy."  Says  Montaigne, 
"  Could  my  soul  once  take  footing,  I  would  not  essay, 
but  resolve  ;  but  it  is  always  leaving  and  making  trial." 
"  'T  is  an  exact  and  exquisite  life  that  contains  itself  in 
due  order  in  private.  Every  one  may  take  a  part  in  the 
farce,  and  assume  the  part  of  an  honest  man  upon  the 
stage  ;  but  within,  and  in  his  own  bosom,  where  all 
things  are  lawful  to  us,  all  things  concealed,  —  to  be  reg- 
ular, that  is  the  point.  The  next  degree  is  to  be  so  in 
one's  house,  in  one's  ordinary  actions,  for  which  one  is 
accountable  to  none,  and  where  there  is  no  study  oi  ar- 
tifice." "  We  chiefly,  who  live  private  lives,  not  exposed 
to  any  other  view  than  our  own,  ought  to  have  settled  a 
pattern  within  ourselves,  by  which  to  try  our  actions." 
"  Conscience,"  cries  Sterne,  "  is  not  a  law  ;  no,  God  and 


INSUFFICIENCY.  23 

reason  made  the  law,  and  have  placed  conscience  within 
you  to  determine." 

How  often  our  virtues  and  benefactions  are  but  the 
effects  of  our  vices  and  our  crimes ;  and  as  often  do  our 
vices  disguise  themselves  under  the  name  of  virtues. 
"We  ought  not,"  says  Montaigne,  "to  honor  v.ith  the 
name  of  duty  that  peevishness  and  inward  discontent 
which  spring  from  private  interest  and  passion ;  nor  call 
treacheious  and  malicious  conduct  courage.  People  give 
the  name  of  zeal  to  their  propensity  to  mischief  and  vio 
lence,  though  it  is  not  the  cause,  but  their  interest,  that 
inflames  them.  Miserable  kind  of  remedy,  to  owe  a 
man's  health  to  his  disease.  The  virtue  of  the  soul  does 
not  consist  in  flying  high,  but  walking  orderly  ;  its  grand- 
eur does  not  exercise  itself  in  grandeur,  but  in  medioc- 
rity." The  greatest  man  is  great  in  matters  of  self-con- 
duct ;  the  wisest  is  wise  in  little  matters  of  life  j  the  one 
is  never  little,  the  other  never  foolish. 

"  The  superior  man,"  says  Confucius,  "  does  not  wait 
till  he  sees  things,  to  be  cautious,  nor  till  he  hears  things, 
to  be  apprehensive.  There  is  nothing  more  visible  than 
what  is  secret,  and  nothing  more  manifest  than  what  is 
minute.  Therefore,  the  superior  man  will  watch  over 
himself  when  he  is  alone.  He  examines  his  heart  that 
there  may  be  nothing  wrong  there,  and  that  he  may  have 
no  cause  for  dissatisfaction  with  himself.  That  wherein 
he  excels  is  simply  his  work  which  other  men  cannot  see. 
Are  you  free  from  shame  in  your  apartment,  when  you 
are  exposed  only  to  the  light  of  heaven  ?  " 

"  Most  men,"  says  Alger,  "  live  blindly  to  repeat  a 
routine  of  drudgery  and  indulgence,  without  any  deliber- 
ately chosen  and  maintained  aims.  Many  live  to  outstrip 
their  rivals,  pursue  their  enemies,  gratify  their  lusts,  and 
make  a  display.  Few  live  distinctly  to  develop  the  value 
of  their  being,  know  the  truth,  love  their  fellows,  enjo} 
the  beauty  of  the  world,  and  aspire  to  God." 


24  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

"Life  is  a  series  of  surprises,"  says  Emerson,  "and 
would  not  be  worth  taking  or  keeping  if  it  were  not. 
God  delights  to  isolate  us  every  day,  and  hide  from  us 
the  past  and  the  future.  We  would  look  about  us,  but 
with  grand  politeness  He  draws  down  before  us  an  im- 
penetrable screen  of  purest  sky.  '  You  will  not  remem- 
ber,' He  seems  to  say,  '  and  you  will  not  expect.'  " 

Goldsmith,  in  one  of  his  delightful  Chinese  Letters, 
gives  this  illustration  of  the  vanity  and  uncertainty  of 
human  judgment :  "  A  painter  of  eminence  was  once  re- 
solved to  finish  a  piece  which  should  please  the  whole 
world.  When,  therefore,  he  had  drawn  a  picture,  in 
which  his  utmost  skill  was  exhausted,  it  was  exposed  in 
the  public  market-place,  with  directions  at  the  bottom  for 
every  spectator  to  mark  with  a  brush,  which  lay  by,  every 
limb  and  feature  which  seemed  erroneous.  The  spec- 
tators came,  and  in  general  applauded  ;  but  each,  will- 
ing to  show  his  talent  at  criticism,  marked  whatever  he 
thought  proper.  At  evening,  when  the  painter  came,  he 
was  mortified  to  find  the  whole  picture  one  universal  blot ; 
not  a  single  stroke  that  was  not  stigmatized  with  marks 
of  disapprobation.  Not  satisfied  with  this  trial,  the  next 
day  he  was  resolved  to  try  them  in  a  different  manner, 
and,  exposing  his  picture  as  before,  desired  that  every 
spectator  would  mark  those  beauties  he  approved  or  ad- 
mired. The  people  complied  ;  and  the  artist,  returning, 
found  his  picture  replete  with  the  marks  of  beauty ;  every 
stroke  that  had  been  yesterday  condemned  now  received 
the  character  of  approbation." 

"  Experience  tells  us,"  says  La  Bruyere,  "  if  there  are 
ten  persons  who  would  blot  a  thought  or  an  expression  out 
of  a  book,  there  are  a  like  number  who  would  oppose  it" 
"The  most  accomplished  piece,"  he  thought,  "which  the 
age  has  produced  would  fail  under  the  hands  of  the  crit 
ics  and  censurers,  if  the  author  would  hearken  to  all  their 
objections,  and  allow  every  one  to  throw  out  the  passage 


INSUFFICIENCY.  2$ 

that  pleased  him  the  least."  "  To  hear  praise  and  dis- 
praise on  a  sermon,  a  piece  of  music,  or  a  picture,  and 
upon  the  very  same  subject  to  be  entertained  with  quite 
opposite  sentiments,  is  what  makes  one  freely  conclude 
we  may  safely  publish  anything,  good  or  bad  ;  for  the 
good  pleases  some,  the  bad  others,  and  the  worst  has  its 
admirers." 

At  a  club  meeting  in  London,  a  nephew  of  Macau- 
lay  refused  to  rise  when  the  national  anthem  was  sung ; 
but  when  he  said  that  he  did  so  from  principle,  he  was 
respected  in  it.  Others  when  questioned  as  to  why  they 
rose  said,  one  because  it  was  a  hymn  ;  another  because 
of  loyalty  to  England ;  another  because  he  loved  the 
queen ;  another  because  it  was  the  custom ;  and  they 
finally  justified  the  refusal  to  rise  because  no  two  of  them 
could  agree  as  to  why  they  rose, 

Irving,  in  his  Knickerbocker's  New  York,  thus  refers 
to  the  habit  of  criticising  and  complaining  in  the  time  of 
William  the  Testy  :  "  Cobblers  abandoned  their  stalls  to 
give  lessons  on  political  economy ;  blacksmiths  suffered 
their  fires  to  go  out  while  they  stirred  up  the  fires  of  fac- 
tion ;  and  even  tailors,  though  said  to  be  the  ninth  parts 
of  humanity,  neglected  their  own  measures  to  criticise 
the  measures  of  government.  Strange  !  that  the  science 
of  government,  which  seems  to  be  so  generally  under- 
stood, should  invariably  be  denied  to  the  only  ones  called 
upon  to  exercise  it.  Not  one  of  the  politicians  in  ques- 
tion but,  take  his  word  for  it,  could  have  administered 
affairs  ten  times  better  than  William  the  Testy." 

Socrates  used  to  say  that  although  no  man  undertakes 
a  trade  he  has  not  learned,  even  the  meanest,  yet  every 
one  thinks  himself  sufficiently  qualified  for  the  hardest  of 
all  trades,  that  of  government. 

"  Whoever  would  aim  directly  at  a  cure  of  a  public 
evil,"  says  Montaigne,  "  and  would  consider  of  it  before 
he  began,  would  be  very  willing  to  withdraw  his  hands 


26  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

from  meddling  in  it.  Pacuvius  Calavius,  according  to 
Livy,  corrected  the  vice  of  this  proceeding  by  a  notable 
example.  His  fellow-citizens  were  in  mutiny  against  their 
magistrates  ;  he,  being  a  man  of  great  authority  in  the 
city  of  Capua,  found  means  one  day  to  shut  up  the  sena- 
tors in  the  palace,  and  calling  the  people  together  :n  the 
market-place,  he  told  them  that  the  day  was  now  come 
wherein,  at  full  liberty,  they  might  revenge  themselves 
on  the  tyrants  by  whom  they  had  been  so  long  oppressed, 
and  whom  he  had  now,  all  alone  and  unarmed,  at  his 
mercy ;  and  advised  that  they  should  call  them  out  one 
by  one  by  lot,  and  should  particularly  determine  of  every 
one,  causing  whatever  should  be  decreed  to  be  immedi- 
ately executed  ;  with  this  caution,  that  they  should  at  the 
same  time  depute  so«ie  honest  man  in  the  place  of  him 
that  was  condemned,  to  the  end  that  there  might  be  no 
vacancy  in  the  senate.  They  had  no  sooner  heard  the 
name  of  one  senator,  but  a  great  cry  of  universal  dislike 
was  raised  up  against  him.  *  I  see,'  said  Pacuvius,  *  we 
must  get  rid  of  him  ;  he  is  a  wicked  fellow ;  let  us  look 
out  a  good  one  in  his  room.'  Immediately  there  was 
a  profound  silence,  every  one  being  at  a  stand  who  to 
choose.  But  one,  more  impudent  than  the  rest,  having 
named  his  man,  there  arose  yet  a  greater  consent  of 
voices  against  him,  a  hundred  imperfections  being  laid  to 
his  charge,  and  as  many  just  reasons  being  presently 
given  why  he  should  not  stand.  These  contradictory 
humors  growing  hot,  it  fared  worse  with  the  second  sena- 
tor and  the  third,  there  being  as  much  disagreement  in 
ihe  election  of  the  new,  as  consent  in  the  putting  out  of 
the  old.  In  the  end,  growing  weary  of  this  bustle  to  no 
purpose,  they  began,  some  one  way  and  some  another,  to 
steal  out  of  the  assembly  ;  every  one  carrying  back  this 
resolution  in  his  mind,  that  the  oldest  and  best  known 
evil  was  ever  more  supportable  than  one  that  was  new 
and  untried." 


INSUFFICIENCY.  27 

"  Among  all  animals  man  is  the  only  one  who  tries  to 
pass  for  more  than  he  is,  and  so  involves  himself  in  the 
condemnation  of  seeming  less."  "  The  negro  king  de- 
sired to  be  portrayed  as  white.  But  do  not  laugh  at  the 
poor  African,"  pleads  Heine,  "  for  every  man  is  but  an- 
other negro  king,  and  would  like  to  appear  in  a  colcr  dif  • 
terent  from  that  with  which  Fate  has  bedaubed  him." 

It  is  even  harder,  when  he  is  most  barbarous  and  be- 
sotted in  his  ignorance,  to  disturb  his  complacency  and 
self-conceit.  "  It  was  most  ludicrous,"  says  Darwin,  "  to 
watch  through  a  glass  the  Indians,  as  often  as  the  shot 
struck  the  water,  take  up  stones,  and,  as  a  bold  defiance, 
throw  them  toward  the  ship,  though  about  a  mile  and  a 
half  distant !  A  boat  was  then  sent  with  orders  to  fire  a 
few  musket-shots  wide  of  them.  The  Fuegians  hid  them- 
selves behind  the  trees,  and  for  every  discharge  of  the 
muskets  they  fired  their  arrows ;  all,  however,  fell  short 
of  the  boat,  and  the  officer  as  he  pointed  at  them  laughed. 
This  made  the  Fuegians  frantic  with  passion,  and  they 
shook  their  mantles  in  vain  rage.  At  last,  seeing  the  balls 
cut  and  strike  the  trees,  they  ran  away,  and  we  were  left 
in  peace  and  quietness," 

Mungo  Park,  while  traveling  in  Africa,  once  entered  a 
region  until  that  time  unexplored  by  civilized  man.  His 
escort  of  Guinea  negroes  carried  him  to  witness  a  gala-day 
jollification.  The  sable  chief  was  sitting  on  a  stump  in 
the  centre  of  a  cleared  half-acre,  his  face  tattooed,  trink- 
ets dangling  from  his  nose,  ears,  chin,  etc.,  and  his  sub- 
jects were  dancing  around  him.  Having  sold  negroes, 
captured  in  war,  to  the  slave-traders  on  the  coast,  the 
chief  had  learned  to  speak  a  little  outlandish  English. 
When  the  visitor  approached  His  Majesty,  —  the  dance 
suspended,  —  he  exclaimed  :  "  English  ?  "  "  Yes,"  said 
Park,  "  I  am  an  Englishman."  "  Way  over  yonder  ?  "  said 
the  chief,  pointing  westward.  "  Yes,"  answered  Park  ; 
•'  three  thousand  miles  off."  "  What  folks  say  'bout  me 
dar?"  was  the  eager  inquiry  of  his  African  Majesty. 


28  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

The  half-naked  barbarians  of  Abyssinia  claim  descent 
from  King  Solomon  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba,  and  boast 
that  all  other  kings  are  but  upstarts  and  pretenders  com- 
pared tO'  theirs.  Reminding  the  reader  of  the  "  most 
mighty  emperor  of  Lilliput  "  (six  inches  in  height),  de- 
scribed in  the  famous  state  paper  as  the  "  delight  and 
terror  of  the  universe,  whose  dominions  extend  (about 
twelve  miles  in  circumference)  to  the  extremities  of  the 
globe  ;  monarch  of  all  monarchs,  taller  than  the  sons  of 
men  ;  whose  feet  press  down  to  the  centre,  and  whose  head 
strikes  against  the  sun  ;  at  whose  nod  the  princes  of  the 
earth  shake  their  knees  ;  pleasant  as  the  spring,  comfort- 
able as  the  summer,  fruitful  as  autumn,  dreadful  as  winter.' 

You  remember  the  famous  contest  of  an  eminent  wit, 
in  Billingsgate.  He  was  passing  through  the  market,  as 
the  story  goes,  when  he  was  rudely  jostled  and  profanely 
addressed  by  a  monstrous  fish-woman.  "  See  how  I  will 
bring  her  down  without  degrading  myself,"  whispered  he 
to  his  companion.  Looking  straight  at  the  creature,  he 
said  to  her,  deliberately  and  emphatically,  "  You  are  a 
triangle  !  "  which  made  her  swear  louder  than  ever.  He 
then  called  her  "  a  rectangle  !  a  parallelogram  !  "  That 
made  her  eloquent ;  but  the  great  man  with  a  big  voice 
again  broke  through  her  volubility,  screaming  fiercely, 
'  You  are  a  miserable,  wicked  hypothenuse  !  "  That  dum- 
founded  the  brute.  She  had  never  heard  swearing  like 
that. 

Curran  used  to  tell  of  a  like  ludicrous  encounter  be- 
tween himself  and  a  fish-woman  on  the  quay  at  Cork. 
This  lady,  whose  tongue  would  have  put  Billingsgate  to 
the  blush,  was  urged  one  day  to  assail  him,  which  she 
did  with  very  little  reluctance.  "I  thought  myself  a 
match  for  her,"  said  he,  "  and  valorously  took  up  the 
gauntlet.  But  such  a  virago  never  skinned  an  eel.  My 
whole  vocabulary  made  not  ihe  least  impression.  On 
the  contrary,  she  was  manifestly  becoming  more  vigorous 


INSUFFICIENCY.  29 

every  moment,  and  I  had  nothing  for  it  but  to  beat  a  re- 
treat. This,  however,  was  to  be  done  with  dignity ;  so, 
drawing  myself  up  disdainfully,  I  said,  '  Madam,  I  scorn 
all  further  discourse  with  such  an  individual ! '  She  did 
not  understand  the  word,  and  thought  it,  no  doubt,  the 
very  hyperbole  of  opprobrium.  '  Individual,  you'  waga- 
bone  ! '  she  screamed,  '  what  do  you  mean  by  that  ?  I  'm 
no  more  an  individual  than  your  mother  was  ? '  Never 
was  victory  more  complete.  The  whole  sisterhood  did 
homage  to  me,  and  I  left  the  quay  of  Cork  covered  with 
glory." 

The  discomfiture  of  Miss  Pinkerton,  who  attempted 
once  to  scold  Becky  Sharp  in  public,  is  familiar  to  every 
reader  of  Thackeray.  Rebecca  hit  upon  the  plan  of  an- 
swering her  in  French,  which  quite  routed  the  old  woman. 

A  wise  man,  who  lived  a  long  life  of  virtue,  study, 
travel,  society,  and  reflection  ;  who  read  the  best  books 
and  conversed  with  the  greatest  and  best  men  ;  the  com- 
panion of  philosophers  and  scientists ;  familiar  with  all 
important  discoveries  and  experiments ;  after  he  was 
three-score  and  ten,  wTOte,  "  It  is  remarkable  that  the 
more  there  is  known,  the  more  it  is  perceived  there  is  to 
be  known.  And  the  infinity  of  knowledge  to  be  acquired 
runs  parallel  with  the  infinite  faculty  of  knowing,  and  its 
development.  Sometimes  I  feel  reconciled  to  my  extreme 
ignorance,  by  thinking.  If  I  know  nothing,  the  most 
learned  know  next  to  nothing."  "  Had  I  earlier  known," 
said  Goethe,  "how  many  excellent  things  have  been  in 
existence,  for  hundreds  and  thousands  of  years,  I  should 
have  written  no  line  ;  I  should  have  had  enough  else  to 
do."  Cardinal  Farnese  one  day  found  Michel  Angelo, 
when  an  old  man,  walking  alone  in  the  Coliseum,  and 
expressed  his  surprise  at  finding  him  solitary  amidst  the 
ruins  ;  to  which  he  replied,  "  I  go  yet  to  school,  that  I 
may  continue  to  learn."  In  his  last  days,  he  made  a  de- 
sign of  himself  as  a  child  in  a  go-cart,  with  this  motto 


30  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

under  it,  "  I  am  yet  learning."  Rubens  complained,  that 
just  as  he  was  beginning  to  understand  his  profession  he 
was  forced  to  quit  it.  Mozart  declared  on  his  death-bed, 
tliat  he  began  to  see  what  may  be  done  in  music.  But- 
ton told  a  friend  that,  after  passing  fifty  years  at  his 
desk,  he  was  every  day  learning  to  write.  Macaulay,  the 
year  before  his  death,  after  spending  some  hours  over  his 
own  writings,  wrote  in  his  diary  :  "  Alas  !  how  short  life 
and  how  long  art !  I  feel  as  if  I  had  just  begim  to  un- 
derstand how  to  write  ;  and  the  probability  is  that  I  have 
very  nearly  done  writing."  Theophrastus,  one  hundred 
and  seven  years  old,  St.  Jerome  assures  us,  lamented 
that  he  was  obliged  to  quit  life  at  a  time  when  he  just 
began  to  be  wise.  Mrs.  Jameson  once  asked  Mrs.  Sid- 
dons  which  of  her  great  characters  she  preferred  to  play  ? 
She  replied,  after  a  moment's  consideration,  "  Lady  Mac- 
beth is  the  character  I  have  most  studied."  She  after- 
ward said  that  she  had  played  the  character  during  thirty 
years,  and  scarcely  acted  it  once  without  carefully  read- 
ing over  the  part,  and  generally  the  whole  play,  in  the 
morning ;  and  that  she  never  read  over  the  play  without 
finding  something  new  in  it ;  "  something,"  she  said, 
"  which  had  not  struck  me  so  much  as  it  ought  to  have 
struck  me."  Dugald  Stewart  said  of  Bacon's  Essays  that 
in  reading  them  for  the  twentieth  time  he  observed  some- 
thing which  had  escaped  his  attention  in  the  nineteenth. 
"  I  do  not  know,"  said  Newton,  "  what  I  may  appear  to 
the  world ;  but  to  myself  I  seem  to  have  been  only  like  a 
boy  playing  on  the  sea-shore,  and  diverting  myself  in  now 
and  then  finding  a  smoother  pebble  or  a  prettier  shell 
than  ordinary,  while  the  great  ocean  of  truth  lay  all  un- 
discovered before  me."  Said  Bossuet,  "  The  term  of  my 
existence  will  be  eighty  years  at  most,  but  let  us  allow  it 
an  hundred.  What  ages  have  rolled  before  I  had  my 
being  !  How  many  will  flow  after  I  am  gone  !  And  what 
a  small  space  do  I  occupy  in  this  grand  succession  of 


INSUFFICIENCY.  3 1 

years  !  I  am  as  a  blank  ;  this  diminutive  interval  is  not 
sufficient  to  distinguish  me  from  that  nothing  to  which  I 
must  inevitably  return.  I  seem  only  to  have  made  my 
appearance  for  the  purpose  of  increasing  the  number ; 
and  I  am  even  useless — for  the  play  would  have  beet\ 
just  as  well  performed,  had  I  remained  behind  the 
scenes."  Wrote  Voltaire,  "  I  am  ignorant  how  I  was 
formed,  and  how  I  was  born.  I  was  perfectly  ignoiant, 
for  a  quarter  of  my  life,  of  the  reasons  of  all  that  I  saw, 
heard,  and  felt,  and  was  a  mere  parrot,  talking  by  rote 
in  imitation  of  other  parrots.  When  I  looked  about  me 
and  within  me,  I  conceived  that  something  existed  from 
all  eternity.  Since  there  are  beings  actually  existing,  I 
concluded  that  there  is  some  being  necessary  and  neces- 
sarily eternal.  Thus  the  first  step  which  I  took  to  extri- 
cate myself  from  my  ignorance  overpassed  the  limits  of 
all  ages  —  the  boundaries  of  time.  But  when  I  was  de- 
sirous of  proceeding  in  this  infinite  career,  I  could  neither 
perceive  a  single  path,  nor  clearly  distinguish  a  single 
object ;  and  from  the  flight  which  I  took  to  contemplate 
eternity,  I  have  fallen  back  into  the  abyss  of  my  original 
ignorance."  "Heads  of  capacity,  and  such  as  are  not 
full  with  a  handful,  or  easy  measure  of  knowledge,  think 
they  know  nothing  till  they  know  all ;  which  being  im- 
possible, they  fall,"  said  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  "  upon  the 
opinion  of  Socrates,  and  only  know  they  know  not  any- 
thing." Hiero,  tyrant  of  Sicily,  asked  old  Simonides  to 
tell  him  what  God  is.  The  poet  answered  him  that  it 
was  not  a  question  that  could  be  immediately  answered, 
and  that  he  wanted  a  whole  day  to  think  upon  it.  When 
that  term  was  over,  Hiero  asked  the  answer ;  but  Simon- 
ides desired  two  days  more  to  consider  of  it.  This  was 
not  the  last  delay  he  asked  ;  he  was  often  called  on  to 
give  an  answer,  and  every  time  he  desired  double  the 
time  he  had  last  demanded.  •The  tyrant,  wondering  at  it, 
desired  to  know  the  reason  of  it.     I  do  so,  answered  Si- 


32  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

monides,  because  the  more  I  examine  the  matter,  the 
more  obscure  it  appears  to  me.  "  After  reading  all  that 
has  been  written,"  says  the  poet  Poe,  "  and  all  that  can 
be  thought,  on  the  topics  of  God  and  the  soul,  the  man 
who  has  a  right  to  say  that  he  thinks  at  all,  will  find  him- 
self face  to  face  with  the  conclusion  that,  on  these  topics, 
the  most  profound  thought  is  that  which  can  be  the  least 
easily  distinguished  from  the  most  superficial  sentiment." 
*'  I  am  a  fragment,  and  this  is  a  fragment  of  me,"  says 

Emerson "I  am  very  content  with   knowing,    if 

only  I  could  know To  know  a  little,  would  be 

worth  the  expense  of  this  world,"  "  You  read  of  but  one 
wise  man,"  says  Congreve,  "  and  all  that  he  knew  was  — 
that  he  knew  nothing."  "  The  curiosity  of  knowing 
things  has  been  given  to  man  for  a  scourge."  "If  God," 
said  Lessing,  "  held  all  truth  shut  in  his  right  hand,  and 
in  his  left  nothing  but  the  restless  instinct  for  truth, 
though  with  the  condition  of  forever  and  ever  erring,  and 
should  say  to  me.  Choose !  I  would  bow  reverently  to 
his  left  hand,  and  say.  Father,  give  i  Pure  truth  is  for 
Thee  alone ! " 


TI. 

EXTREMES. 

In  man,  it  has  been  said,  there  will  be  a  layer  of  fierce 
hyena,  or  of  timid  deer,  running  through  the  nature  in  the 
most  uncertain  and  tortuous  manner.  Nero  is  sensitive  to 
poetry  and  music,  but  not  to  human  suffering :  Marcus 
Aurelius  is  tolerant  and  good  to  all  men  but  Christians. 
The  Tlascalans  of  Mexico  loved,  and  even  worshiped, 
flowers  ;  but  they  were  cruel  to  excess,  and  sacrificed  hu- 
man victims  with  savage  delight.  The  body  of  the  sacri- 
ficed captive,  we  are  told  by  Prescott,  was  delivered  to 
the  warrior  who  had  taken  him  in  battle,  and  by  him, 
after  being  dressed,  was  served  up  in  an  entertainment  to 
his  friends.  This  was  not  the  coarse  repast  of  famished 
cannibals,  but  a  banquet  teeming  with  delicious  beverages 
and  delicate  viands,  prepared  with  art,  and  attended  by 
both  sexes,  who  conducted  themselves  with  all  the  decorum 
of  civilized  life.  The  Aztec  priests  were  more  wild  and 
ferocious  than  the  soldiery,  their  hair  was  long  and  mat- 
ted, and  their  garments  were  stained  with  human  blood. 
The  good  and  the  evil  lie  close  together ;  the  virtues  and 
the  vices  alternate  ;  so  is  human  power  accumulated ;  al- 
ternately the  metals  and  the  rags  ;  a  terrible  Voltaic  pile. 
In  the  well-bred  animal  the  claw  is  nicely  cushioned  ;  the 
old  Adam  is  presentable.  Overhear  a  beautiful  young 
woman  swear,  and  meet  her  an  hour  afterward,  all  smiles 
and  loveliness,  in  the  drawing-room.  Speak  with  unre- 
served kindness  of  one  lady  to  another,  —  both  of  them 
very  lovely  creatures,  so  far  as  you  know,  —  and  receive 
in  reply,  "  Don't !  She,  of  all  persons  I  know,  is  the  only 
3 


34  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

one  I  hate  to  hear  praised."  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Mon- 
tagu said  of  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough,  "  We  continue 
to  see  one  another  like  two  persons  who  are  resolved  to 
hate  with  civility."  "  It  goes  far  to  reconcile  me  to  be- 
ing a  woman,"  she  said  on  another  occasion,  "  when  I  re- 
flect that  I  am  thus  in  no  danger  of  ever  marrying  one." 
Madame  de  Maintenon  and  Madame  de  Montespan  met 
in  public,  talked  with  vivacity,  and,  to  those  who  judged 
only  by  appearances,  seemed  excellent  friends.  Once 
when  they  had  to  make  a  journey  in  the  same  carriage, 
Madame  de  Montespan  said,  "  Let  us  talk  as  if  there 
ivere  no  difference  between  us,  but  on  condition  that  we 
resume  our  disputes  when  we  return."  Pietro  Delia  Valle 
Kays  that  when  the  Ecce  Homo  was  exposed  during  the 
cermon  in  the  Jesuit  church  at  Goa,  the  women  used  to 
beat  their  servants,  if  they  did  not  cry  enough  to  please 
them.  Saint-Simon  relates  of  the  Marechale  de  la  Ferte 
and  her  sister,  both  beautiful  women,  but  ver}"^  dissolute, 
that  upon  one  occasion  they  heard  a  sermon  on  penitence 
which  terrified  them.  "  My  sister,"  one  said  on  their  re- 
turn, '*  it  was  all  true ;  we  must  do  penance  or  we  are  lost. 
But,  my  sister,  what  shall  we  do  ?  "  After  having  well 
turned  it  over,  "My  sister,"  replied  the  other,  "This  is 
what  we  must  do  —  we  must  make  our  servants  fast." 
When  Moore's  Life  of  Byron  first  appeared,  it  was  in  two 
large,  quarto  volumes,  and  the  first  came  out  alone. 
Murray  told  Leslie  that  a  lady  said  to  him,  "  I  hear  it  is 
dull  j "  and  he  told  her  the  scandal  was  all  to  be  in  the 
second  volume.  "  And  is  the  second  volume  to  be  had 
separately?"  asked  the  lady,  I  was  once,  says  a  writer, 
passing  through  Moorfields,  with  a  young  girl,  aged  about 
nine  or  ten  years,  born  and  educated  in  Portugal,  but  in 
the  Protestant  faith ;  and,  observing  a  large  concourse  of 
people  assembled  around  a  pile  of  fagots  on  fire,  I  ex- 
pressed a  curiosity  to  know  the  cause.  She  very  com- 
posedly answered,  "  I  suppose  that  it  is  nothing  more  thay 


EXTREMES. 


35 


hat  they  are  going  to  burn  a  Jew."     Isabella  the  Catho- 
lic was  wont  to  rejoice  and  give  thanks  at  the  sight  of  a 
gallows  with  a  man  hanging  therefrom.     Charlotte  Cusli- 
man  related  an  incident  that  occurred  at  a  theatre.     A 
man  in  the  gallery  made  such  a  disturbance  that  the  play 
could  not  proceed.     Cries  of  "Throw  him  over,"  arose 
from  all  parts  of  the  house,  and  the  noise  became  furious. 
All  was  tumultuous  chaos  until  a  sweet  and  gentle  femaij 
voice  was  heard  in  the  pit,  exclaiming,  "  No  !     I  pray  you 
don't  throw  him  over  !     I  beg  of  you,  dear  friends,  don't 
throw  him  over,  but  —  kill  him  where  he  is."     It  is  re- 
corded that  after  the  massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  the 
ladies  of  the  court  of  Paris  went  out  to  examine  the  lor.' 
row  of  the  bodies  of  the  Huguenot  cavaliers  who  had  been 
slain  during  the  tumult,  and  curiously  turning  them  over, 
when  half-stripped  of  their  garments,  said  to  each  other, 
"  This  must  have  been  a  charming  lover  ;  that  was  not 
worth   looking   at ; "    and  when    a  fanatic   assassin  was 
brought  out  in  the  square  of  the  Louvre  to  undergo  dur- 
ing four  hours  the  most  frightful  tortures  which  human 
ingenuity  or  malignity  could  devise,  or  the  human  frame 
endure,  all  the  ladies  of  the  court  assembled  to  witness 
the  spectacle,  and  paid  high  prices  for  seats  nearest  the 
scene  of  agony.     In  the  Conciergerie,  during  the  Reign 
of  Terror,  a  corridor  was  common  in  the  day-time  to  both 
sexes,  and  here,  it  is  stated,  there  was  as  much  dressing, 
talking,  flirting,  and  love-making  as  in  the  salons  of  Paris. 
Most  of  the  women  contrived  to  change  their  dress  three 
times  a  day,  though  in  the  interval  they  had  often  to  wash 
or  mend  the  garment  they  were  about  to  put  on.     The 
tone  of  conversation  was  gay  and  animated,  and  the  peo- 
ple seemed   bent  on  proving  that  though  the  Reign  o 
Terror  might  imprison  and  kill  them,  it  could  not  make 
them  dull  or  disagreeable. 

It  is  related  that  Delia  Valle,  the  distinguished  Italiar, 
traveler,  had  such  an  absorbing  fondness  for  his  wife  that, 


^6         •  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

when  she  died,  on  the  shore  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  he  em- 
balmed her  body,  and  spent  one  whole  year  conveying  i\ 
back  through  India  to  Rome,  where  he  celebrated   her 
obsequies  by  pronouncing  a  funeral  oration,  during  the 
delivery  of  which  his  emotions  became  so  violent  as  to 
choke  his  utterance.     Not  long  after,  in  a  fit  of  anger,  he 
killed  his  coachman,  in  the  area  before  St.  Peter's,  while 
the  pope  was  pronouncing  a  benediction.    "  I  remember," 
says    Patmore,  in  his    personal  recollections  of  Hazlitt, 
'*  having  occasionally  played  at  whist  with  a  person  who, 
on  any  occurrence  of  extraordinary  ill-luck,  used  to  lay 
his  cards  down  deliberately,  and  bite  a  piece  out  of  the 
back  of  his  hand  !     This  person  was,  under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances, the  very  ideal  of  a  'gentleman  '  —  bland,  pol- 
ished, courteous,  forbearing,  kind,  and  self-possessed  to 
an  extraordinary  degree  ;  and  his  personal  appearance  in 
every  respect  corresponded  with  his  manners  and  bear- 
ing.    Hazlitt's  passions  sometimes  produced  similar  re- 
sults.    I  have  seen  him  more  than  once,  at  the  Fives 
Court  in  St.  Martin  Street,  on  making  a  bad  stroke  or 
missing  his  ball  at  some  critical  point  of  the  game,  fling 
his  racket  to  the  other  end  of  the  court,  walk  deliber- 
ately to  the  centre,  with  uplifted  hands  imprecate  the  most 
fearful  curses  on  his  head,  for  his  stupidity,  and  then  rush 
to  the  side  wall  and  literally  dash  his  head  against  it !  " 
Shortly  before  the  Chinese  Emperor's  death,  a  gigantic 
image,  the  goddess  of  small-pox,  was  paraded  round  the 
city  of  Pekin  in  solemn  procession,  and  then  taken  into 
the  bed-room  of  the  dying  youth,  where  it  was  worshiped 
and  honored  with  many  propitiatory  offerings.     As,  how- 
ever, the  goddess  continued  obdurate,  she  was  subjected 
to  a  severe  flogging,  and  finally  burned. 

In  the  early  history  of  New  England  the  law  compelled 
the  people  to  attend  church,  the  services  commencing  at 
nine  o'clock  and  continuing  six  to  eight  hours.  Near  the 
church  edifice  stood  the  stocks  and  the  whipping-post, 


EXTREMES.  3/ 

and  a  large  wooden  cage,  in  which  to  confine  offenders 
against  the  laws.  The  congregation  had  places  assigned 
them  upon  the  rude  benches,  at  the  annual  town-meeting, 
according  to  their  age  and  social  position.  A  person  was 
fined  who  occupied  a  s^at  assigned  to  another.  The  boys 
were  ordered  to  sit  upon  the  gallery-stairs,  and  three  con- 
stables were  employed  to  keep  them  in  order.  Prominent 
before  the  assembly,  some  wretched  male  or  female  of- 
fender sat  with  a  scarlet  letter  on  the  breast,  to  denote 
some  crime  against  the  stern  code.  Fleeing  the  mother- 
country  for  peace  and  freedom,  the  descendants  of  the 
Puritans  persecuted  the  Quakers,  and  burnt  the  incorrigi- 
ble eccentrics  of  society  for  witches. 

John  Howe's  method  of  conducting  public  fasts  was 
as  follows  :  "  He  began  at  nine  o'clock  with  a  prayer  of 
a  quarter  of  an  hour,  read  and  expounded  Scripture  for 
about  three  quarters  of  an  hour,  prayed  an  hour,  preached 
another  hour,  then  prayed  half  an  hour  ;  the  people  then 
sang  for  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  during  which  he  re- 
tired and  took  a  little  refreshment ;  he  then  went  into 
the  pulpit  again,  prayed  an  hour  more,  preached  another 
hour,  and  then,  with  a  prayer  of  half  an  hour,  concluded 
the  services." 

The  clergy,  too,  were  sometimes  victims.  An  in- 
stance :  "  The  rector  of  Fittleworth,  in  Sussex,  was  dis- 
possessed of  his  living  for  Sabbath-breaking;  the  fact 
proved  against  him  being,  that  as  he  was  stepping  over 
a  stile  one  Sunday,  the  button  of  his  breeches  came  off, 
and  he  got  a  tailor  in  the  neighborhood  presently  to  sew 
it  on  again." 

We  are  told  that  at  the  time  Ireland  was  called  the  Isle 
■»f  Saints,  "  when  a  child  was  immersed  at  baptism,  it  was 
ustomary  not  to  dip  the  right  arm,  to  the  intent  that  he 
might  strike  a  more  deadly  and  ungracious  blow  there- 
with ;  and  under  an  opinion,  no  doubt,  that  the  rest  of 
the  body  would  not  be  responsible  at  the  resurrection  for 


38  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

anything  which  had  been  committed  by  the  unbaptized 
hand.  Thus,  too,  at  the  baptism,  the  father  took  the 
wolves  for  his  gossips,  and  thought  by  this  profanation 
he  was  forming  an  alUance,  both  for  himself  and  the  boy, 
with  the  fiercest  beasts  of  the  woods.  The  son  of  a 
chief  was  baptized  in  milk ;  water  was  not  thought  good 
enough,  and  whisky  had  not  then  been  invented.  They 
used  to  rob  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  as  a  point  of  de- 
votion, for  the  purpose  of  laying  up  a  good  stock  of  plun- 
der against  Easter ;  and  he  whose  spoils  enabled  him  to 
furnish  the  best  entertainment  at  that  time  was  looked 
upon  as  the  best  Christian ;  so  they  robbed  in  emulation 
of  each  other  ;  and  reconciling  their  habits  to  their  con- 
science, they  persuaded  themselves  that  if  robbery,  mur- 
der, and  rape  had  been  sins,  Providence  would  never  put 
such  temptations  in  their  way  :  nay,  that  the  sin  would  be, 
if  they  were  so  ungrateful  as  not  to  take  advantage  of  a 
good  opportunity  when  it  was  offered  them." 

In  North  Wales,  it  is  stated,  when  a  person  supposes 
himself  highly  injured,  it  is  not  uncommon  for  him  to  go 
to  some  church  dedicated  to  a  celebrated  saint,  as  Llan 
Elian  in  Anglesea,  and  Clynog  in  Carnarvonshire,  and 
there  to  offer  his  enemy.  He  kneels  down  on  his  bare 
knees  in  the  church,  and  offering  a  piece  of  money  to 
':he  saint,  calls  down  curses  and  misfortunes  upon  the 
offender  and  his  family  for  generations  to  come,  in  the 
most  firm  belief  that  the  imprecations  will  be  fulfilled. 
Sometimes  they  repair  to  a  sacred  well  instead  of  a 
church. 

Mrs.  Gaskell,  in  her  biography  of  Charlott*;  Bronte, 
tells  of  a  squire  of  distinguished  family  and  large  prop- 
erty, who  died  at  his  house,  not  far  from  Haworth,  not 
many  years  ago.  His  great  amusement  and  occupation 
had  been  cock-fighting.  When  he  was  confined  to  his 
chamber  with  what  he  knew  would  be  his  last  illness,  he 
had  his  cocks  brought  up  there,  and  watched  the  bloodj 


EXTREMES.  39 

battle  from  his  bed.  As  his  mortal  disease  increased 
and  it  became  impossible  for  him  to  turn  so  as  to  follow 
the  combat,  he  had  looking-glasses  arranged  in  such  a 
manner  around  and  above  him,  as  he  lay,  that  he  could 
still  see  the  cocks  fighting.  And  in  this  manner  he 
died. 

"Qualities,"  says  Helps,  "are  often  inserted  in  a  char- 
acter in  the  most  curious  and  inharmonious  way;  and 
the  end  is  that  you  have  a  man  who  is  the  strangest  mixt- 
ure of  generosity  and  meanness,  of  kindness  and  severity, 
even  of  dishonesty  and  nobleness.  Then  the  passions 
enter.  Sometimes  these  just  fit  in,  unfortunately,  with 
good  points  of  character,  —  so  that  one  man  may  be  ru- 
ined by  a  passion  which  another  and  a  worse  man  would 
have  escaped  unhurt  from.  Then  there  are  the  circum- 
stances to  which  a  character  is  exposed,  and  which  vary 
so  much  that  it  hardly  seems  that  people  are  living  in  the 
same  world,  so  different  are  to  them  the  outward  things 
they  have  to  contend  with.  Altogether,  the  human  being 
becomes  such  a  complicated  creature,  that  though  at  last 
you  may  know  something  about  some  one  specimen,  — 
what  it  will  say  and  what  it  will  do  on  a  given  occasion, 
—  you  never  know  enough  about  the  creature  to  condemn 
it."  "  Neither  the  vices  nor  the  virtues  of  man,"  says 
Taine,  "  are  his  nature  ;  to  praise  or  to  blame  him  is  not 
to  know  him ;  approbation  or  disapprobation  does  not 
define  him  ;  the  names  of  good  or  bad  tell  us  nothing  of 
what  he  is.  Put  the  robber  Cartouche  in  an  Italian  court 
of  the  fifteenth  century ;  he  would  be  a  great  statesman. 
Transport  this  nobleman,  stingy  and  narrow-minded,  into 
a  shop ;  he  will  be  an  exemplary  tradesman.  This  pub- 
lic man,  of  inflexible  probity,  is  in  his  drawing-room  an 
ir. tolerable  coxcomb.  This  father  of  a  family,  so  humane, 
is  an  idiotic  politician.  Change  a  virtue  in  its  circum- 
stances, and  it  becomes  a  vice ;  change  a  vice  in  its  cir- 
cumstances, and  it  becomes  a  virtue.     Regard  the  same 


40  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

quality  from  two  sides ;  on  one  it  is  a  fault,  on  the  othet 
a  merit.  The  essential  of  a  man  is  found  concealed  far 
below  these  moral  badges.  A  character  is  a  force,  like 
gravity,  weight,  or  steam,  capable,  as  it  may  happen,  of 
pernicious  or  profitable  effects,  and  which  must  be  defined 
otherwise  than  by  the  amount  of  weight  it  can  lift  or  the 
havoc  it  can  cause.  It  is  therefore  to  ignore  man,  to  re- 
duce him  to  an  aggregate  of  virtues  and  vices  ;  it  is  to 
lose  sight  in  him  of  all  but  the  exterior  and  soci-tl  side  ; 
it  is  to  neglect  the  inner  and  natural  element." 

'♦The  character  of  the  French  nation,"  says  De  Tocque- 
ville,  "is  so  peculiar  that  the  study  of  human  nature 
in  general  does  not  embrace  it ;  those  even  who  have  most 
studied  it  are  continually  taken  by  surprise  ;  for  our  na- 
tion is  gifted  beyond  any  other  with  capacity  to  appreci- 
ate great  things,  and  even  to  do  them  ;  it  is  equal  to  any 
single  effort,  however  extraordinary,  but  unable  to  remain 
strung  up  to  a  high  pitch  for  any  length  of  time ;  because 
we  act  upon  impulse,  not  on  principle,  and  our  instincts 
are  better  than  our  moral  qualities  ;  we  are  the  most  civ- 
ilized people  in  the  world,  and  yet,  in  certain  respects, 
we  have  retained  more  of  the  savage  than  any  other  na- 
tion ;  for  the  great  characteristic  of  the  savage  is,  to  be 
influenced  by  the  sudden  impressions  of  the  present,  with- 
out recollection  of  the  past  or  thought  of  the  future." 

"  Recollect  that  village  of  the  Limousin,"  said  a  mem- 
ber of  the  National  Convention  during  the  Reign  of  Ter- 
ror, "  from  the  top  of  whose  steeple  the  tri-color  flag 
suddenly  disappeared.  A  violent  disturbance  was  in- 
stantly raised  ;  search  was  made  for  the  daring  offender, 
-.vho  could  not  be  found,  and  in  consequence  a  doztin 
persons  were  instantly  arrested  on  suspicion.  At  length 
the  fragments  of  the  flag  were  discovered  suspended  from 
the  branches  of  a  tree,  and  it  was  found  that  a  magpie 
had  made  its  nest  with  the  remains  of  the  national  color, 
Oh  !  the  tyrannical  bird  !  they  seized  it,  cut  off  its  head, 


EX'IREMES.  41 

and  transmitted  the  evidence  of  the  act  to  the  Conven- 
tion. We  received  it  without  bursting  into  laughter ;  had 
any  one  ventured  to  indulge  himself  in  that  way,  he  would 
have  run  the  risk  of  perishing  on  the  public  scaffold." 

"  In  all  the  courts  of  ancient  philosophy  this  is  to  be 
found,"  says  Montaigne,  "that  the  same  lecturer  there 
publishes  the  rules  of  temperance,  and  at  the  same  time 
discourses  of  love  and  wantonness."  "  I  know  not,"  said 
the  courtesan  Lais,  "what  they  talk  of  books,  wisdom, 
and  philosophy;  but  these  men  knock  as  often  at  my 
door  as  any  others."  Says  Bayle,  in  his  Critical  Diction- 
ary, "  It  was  reported  that  Pericles  turned  out  his  wife, 
and  lodged  with  the  famous  Aspasia,  and  plunged  him- 
self into  lewdness,  and  spent  a  great  part  of  his  estate 
upon  her.  She  was  a  woman  of  so  great  parts  that  Soc- 
rates \yent  to  see  her,  and  carried  his  friends  with  him ; 
and,  to  speak  more  clearly,  she  taught  him  rhetoric  and 
politics.  That  which  is  most  strange  is,  that  those  who 
frequented  her  carried  their  wives  to  her  house,  that  they 
might  hear  her  discourses  and  lectures,  though  she  kept 
several  courtesans  at  home.  Pericles  went  to  see  As- 
pasia twice  a  day,  and  kissed  her  when  he  went  in  and 
when  he  came  out;  which  was  before  he  married  her. 
She  was  accused  of  two  crimes  by  the  comedian  Hermip- 
pus.  He  made  himself  a  party  against  her  in  due  form, 
and  accused  her  before  the  judges  of  impiety,  and  of 
drawing  women  into  her  house  to  satisfy  the  lust  of  Peri- 
cles. During  the  trial  of  Aspasia,  Pericles  used  so  many 
entreaties  with  the  judges,  and  shed  so  many  tears,  ac- 
cording to  yEschines,  that  he  obtained  her  absolution. 
The  Athenians  said  that  Phidias,  the  most  excellent 
sculptor  in  the  world,  and  surveyor-general  of  all  the 
works  which  Pericles  ordered  to  be  made  for  the  orna- 
ment of  the  city,  drew  in  the  ladies  under  pretense  ->£ 
showing  them  the  works  of  the  greatest  masters  ;  but  in 
truth  to  debauch  and  deliver  them  to   Pericles."     The 


42  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

golden  statue  of  Minerva,  it  should  be  remembered,  was 
the  workmanship  of  Phidias,  and  his  name  was  inscribed 
upon  the  pedestal.  Through  the  friendship  of  Pericles 
he  had  the  direction  of  everything,  and  all  the  artists  re- 
ceived his  orders.  For  this,  said  Plutarch,  the  one  was 
envied,  and  the  other  slandered. 

"  Good  and  bad  men  are  each  less  so  than  they  seem." 

"  When  man's  first  incense  rose  above  the  plain, 
Of  earth's  two  altars,  one  was  built  by  Cain." 

"  As  there  is,"  said  Coleridge,  "  much  beast  and  some 
devil  in  man,  so  is  there  some  angel  and  some  God  in 
man.  The  beast  and  the  devil  may  be  conquered,  but  in 
this  life  never  destroyed."  "I  have  ever  delighted,"  said 
Boswell,  "  in  that  intellectual  chemistry  which  can  sepa- 
rate good  qualities  from  evil  in  the  same  person." 

"The  first  lesson  of  history,"  says  Emerson,  ,"is  the 
good  of  evil.  Good  is  a  good  doctor,  but  Bad  is  some- 
times a  better.  'T  is  the  oppressions  of  William  the  Nor- 
man, savage  forest-laws,  and  crushing  despotism,  that 
made  possible  the  inspirations  of  Magna  Charta  under 
John,  Edward  I.  wanted  money,  armies,  castles,  and  as 
much  as  he  could  get.  It  was  necessary  to  call  the  peo- 
ple together  by  shorter,  swifter  ways,  —  and  the  House 
of  Commons  arose.  To  obtain  subsidies,  he  paid  in 
privileges.  In  the  twenty-fourth  year  of  his  reign  he  de- 
creed, '  that  no  tax  should  be  levied  without  consent  of 
Lords  and  Commons;'  which  is  the  basis  of  the  English 
Constitution.  Plutarch  affirms  that  the  cruel  wars  which 
followed  the  march  of  Alexander,  introduced  the  civility, 
?anguage,  and  arts  of  Greece  into  the  savage  East ;  intro- 
duced marriage ;  built  seventy  cities ;  and  united  hostile 
nations  under  one  goverBment.  The  barbarians  who 
broke  up  the  Roman  empire  did  not  arrive  a  day  too 
soon.  Schiller  sa}^s,  the  Thirty  Years'  War  made  Ger- 
many a  nation.  Rough,  selfish  despots  serve  man  im- 
mensely, as  Henry  VIII.  in  the  contest  with  the  pope; 


EXTREMES.  43 

as  the  infatuations  no  less  than  the  wisdom  of  Cromwell ; 
as  the  ferocity  of  the  Russian  czars  ;  as  the  fanaticism  of 
the  French  regicides  of  1789.  The  frost  which  kills  the 
harvest  of  a  year,  saves  the  harvests  of  a  century,  by  de- 
saoying  the  weevil  or  the  locust.  Wars,  fires,  plagues, 
break  up  immovable  routine,  clear  the  ground  of  rotten 
races,  and  dens  of  distemper,  and  open  a  fair  field  to 
new  men.  There  is  a  tendency  in  things  to  right  them- 
selves, and  the  war  or  revolution  or  bankruptcy  that  shat- 
ters a  rotten  system,  allows  things  to  take  a  new  and  nat- 
ural order."  "  Steam  was,  till  thft  other  day,  the  devil 
which  we  dreaded.  Every  pot  made  by  any  human  potter 
or  brazier  had  a  hole  in  its  cover,  to  let  off  the  enemy, 
lest  he  should  lift  pot  and  roof,  and  carry  the  house 
away.  But  the  Marquis  of  Worcester,  Watt,  and  Fulton 
bethought  themselves,  that,  where  was  power,  was  not 
devil,  but  was  God ;  that  it  must  be  availed  of,  and  not 
by  any  means  let  off  and  wasted.  Could  he  lift  pots  and 
roofs  so  handily  ?  he  was  the  workman  they  were  in 
search  of." 

It  is  related  of  Hart,  a  Baptist  minister,  that  he  was  so 
good  a  preacher  and  so  bad  a  liver  that  it  was  said  to 
him  once,  "  Mr.  Hart,  when  I  hear  you  in  the  pulpit,  I 
wish  you  were  never  out  of  it ;  when  I  see  you  out  of  it, 
I  wish  you  were  never  in  it."  One  Mr.  NichoUs,  a  York- 
shire clergyman  in  the  days  immediately  succeeding  the 
Reformation,  who  was  "  much  addicted  to  drinking  and 
company-keeping,"  used  to  say  to  his  companions,  "  You 
must  not  heed  me  but  when  I  am  got  three  feet  above 
the  earth,"  that  was,  into  the  pulpit.  "  I  have  heard  of 
a  witty  parson,"  says  Dr.  Beattie,  "  who  having  been  dis- 
missed for  irregularities,  used  afterward,  in  conversation, 
to  say,  that  he  thanked  God  he  was  not  cashiered  for 
ignorance  and  insufficiency,  but  only  for  vice  and  immo- 
rality." Foster,  in  a  note  to  one  of  his  Essays,  refers  to 
a  Spanish  story  of  a  village  where  the  devil,  having  made 


44  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

the  people  excessively  wicked,  was  punished  by  being 
compelled  to  assume  the  appearance  and  habit  of  a  friar, 
and  to  preach  so  eloquently,  in  spite  of  his  internal  repug- 
nance and  rage,  that  the  inhabitants  were  completely 
reformed. 

Cotton  Mather  has  preserved  a  choice  specimen  of  in- 
vective against  Dr.  Owen,  by  one  of  the  primitive  Quak- 
ers, whose  name  was  Fisher.  It  was,  says  Southey,  a 
species  of  rhetoric  in  which  they  indulged  freely,  and  ex- 
_ceeded  all  other  sectarians.  Fisher  addressed  him  thus  : 
"Thou  fiery  fighter  and  green-headed  trumpeter;  thou 
hedgehog  and  grinning  dog ;  thou  bastard,  that  tumbled 
out  of  the  mouth  of  the  Babylonish  bawd;  thou  mole; 
thou  tinker ;  thou  lizard ;  thou  bell  of  no  metal,  but  the 
tone  of  a  kettle  ;  thou  wheelbarrow  ;  thou  whirlpool ;  thou 
whirligig  ;  oh,  thou  firebrand  ;  thou  adder  and  scorpion  ; 
thou  louse  ;  thou  cow-dung  ;  thou  moon-calf ;  thou  ragged 
tatterdemalion  ;  thou  Judas  :  thou  livest  in  philosophy 
and  logic,  which  are  of  the  devil."  Mather  in  turn  was 
alike  severe  upon  the  Quakers.  He  applied  to  them 
such  language  as  "  upstart  sect ;  "  "  sink  of  all  heresies  ; " 
*  the  grossest  collection  of  blasphemies  and  confusions- 
<nat  ever  was  heard  of  ;"  "dangerous  villains  ;"  "choke- 
weed  of  Christianity;"  "the  quaking  which  distinguished 
these  poor  creatures  was  a  symptom  of  diabolical  posses- 
sion ; "  "  devil-driven  creatures  ;  "  "  for  pride,  and  hypoc- 
risy, and  hellish  reviling  against  the  painful  ministers  of 
Christ,  I  know  no  people  can  match  them."  "  Ht  was  a 
wise  and  a  good  counsellor  in  Plymouth-colony,  who  pro- 
pounded '  that  a  law  might  be  made  for  the  Quakers  to 
have  their  heads  shaved.'  I  confess,"  he  said,  "the 
punishment  was  in  some  sort  capital ;  but  it  would  have 
been  the  best  remedy  for  them  ;  it  would  have  both 
sham'd  and  cur'd  them."  He  quotes  some  choice  lan- 
guage of  Penn  —  "Thou  gormandizing  Priest,  one  of  the 
a1)ominable  tribe  ;  thou  bane  of  reason  ;  thou  pest,  to  be 


EXTREMES.  45 

spared  of  mankind ;  thou  mountebank  Priest " —  and  says, 
"  these  are  the  very  words  (I  wrong  them  not !)  which 
they  vomit  out  against  the  best  men  in  the  English  nation, 
that  have  been  so  hardy  as  to  touch  their  '  light  within  : ' 
but  let  the  quills  of  these  porcupines  fly  as  fast  as  they 
will,  I  shall  not  feel  them."  The  good  Luther  was  a 
violent  saint  sometimes.  Hear  him  express  himself  on 
the  Catholic  divines :  "  The  papists  are  all  asses,  and 
will  always  remain  asses.  Put  them  in  whatever  sauce 
you  choose,  boiled,  roasted,  baked,  fried,  skinned,  beat, 
hashed,  they  are  always  the  same  asses,"  Hear  him  salute 
the  pope :  "The  pope  was  born  out  of  the  devil's  posteriors. 
He  is  full  of  devils,  lies,  blasphemies,  and  idolatries ;  he  is 
Antichrist ;  the  robber  of  churches  ;  the  ravisher  of  vir- 
gins ;  the  greatest  of  pimps ;  the  governor  of  Sodom,  etc. 
If  the  Turks  lay  hold  of  us,  then  we  shall  be  in  the  hands 
of  the  devil ;  but  if  we  remain  with  the  pope,  we  shall  be 
in  hell.  What  a  pleasing  sight  would  it  be  to  see  the  pope 
and  the  cardinals  hanging  on  one  gallows,  in  exact  order, 
like  the  seals  which  dangle  from  the  bulls  of  the  pope  ! 
What  an  excellent  council  would  they  hold  under  the  gal- 
lows ! "  And  hear  him  upon  Henry  VHI. :  "  It  is  hard  to 
say  if  folly  can  be  more  foolish,  or  stupidity  more  stupid, 
than  is  the  head  of  Henry.  He  has  not  attacked  me  with 
the  heart  of  a  king,  but  with  the  impudence  of  a  knave. 
This  rotten  worm  of  the  earth,  having  blasphemed  the 
majesty  of  my  King,  I  have  a  just  right  to  bespatter  his 
English  majesty  with  his  own  dirt  and  ordure.  This 
Heniy  has  lied."  The  good  Calvin  was  alike  violent.  He 
hated  Catholic  and  Lutheran.  "  His  adversaries  are  never 
others  than  knaves,  lunatics,  drunkards,  and  assassins. 
Sometimes  they  are  characterized  by  the  familiar  appel- 
latives of  bulls,  asses,  cats,  and  hogs."  Beza,  the  disci- 
ple of  Calvin,  imitated  his  master.  Upon  a  Lutheran 
minister,  Tillcman,  he  bestowed  these  titles  of  honor: 
"  Polyphemus ;  an  ape  ;  a  great  ass  who  is  distinguished 


4.6  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

from  other  asses  by  wearing  a  hat ;  an  ass  on  two  feet ; 
a  monster  composed  of  part  of  an  ape  and  wild  ass ;  a 
villain  who  merits  hanging  on  the  first  tree  we  find."  As 
to  the  Catholics,  there  is  no  end  to  the  anathemas  and 
curses  of  the  Fathers. 

One  of  the  old  bishops  called  anger  "the  sinews  of 
the  soul."  It  helped  to  fortify  the  rugged  reformer  in  his 
conflicts,  and  illuminated  the  perilous  way  he  trod.  "  We 
oft  by  lightning  read  in  darkest  nights."  It  is  said  the 
finest  wine  is  pressed  from  vintages  which  grow  on  fields 
once  inundated  with  lava.  "  I  never  work  better,"  said 
Luther,  "  than  when  I  am  inspired  by  anger ;  when  I 
am  angry  I.  can  write,  pray,  and  preach  well ;  for  then 
my  whole  temperament  is  quickened,  my  understanding 
sharpened,  and  all  mundane  vexations  and  temptations 
depart."  "  No  one  can  suppose,"  said  Bulwer,  "  that 
Calvin  did  not  deem  that  the  angels  smiled  approbation 
when  he  burned  Servetus.  No  one  can  suppose  that 
when  Torquemada  devised  the  Inquisition,  he  did  not 
conscientiously  believe  that  the  greatest  happiness  of  the 
greatest  number  could  be  best  secured  by  selecting  a  few 
for  a  roast."  Burke  said,  "  a  vigorous  mind  is  as  necessa- 
rily accompanied  with  violent  passions  as  a  great  fire  with 
great  heat."  "  It  is  the  strong  passions,"  said  Helve- 
tius,  "  which,  rescuing  us  from  sloth,  can  alone  impart 
to  us  that  continuous  and  earnest  attention  necessary  to 
great  intellectual  efforts."  "  No  revolution  (in  public  sen- 
timent), civil  or  religious,"  said  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot,  *'  can 
be  accomplished  without  that  degree  of  ardor  and  pas- 
sion which,  in  a  later  age,  will  be  matter  of  ridicule  to 
men  who  do  not  feel  the  occasion,  and  enter  into  the 
spirit  of  the  times,"  "The  man  who  succeeds,"  said  a 
British  reviewer,  "  is  generally  the  narrow  man,  the  man 
of  one  idea,  who  works  at  nothing  but  that ;  sees  every- 
thing only  through  the  light  of  that ;  sacrifices  everything 
to  that ;  the  fanatic,  in  short.     By  fanatics,  whether  mili 


EXTREMES.  47 

tary,  commeicial,  or  religious,  and  not  by  'libeial-minded 
men  '  at  all,  has  the  world's  work  been  done  in  all  ages." 
"Our  passions,"  said  John  Norris,  "were  given  us  to 
perfect  and  accomplish  our  natures,  though  by  accidenta' 
misapplications  to  unworthy  objects  they  may  turn  to 
our  degradation  and  dishonor.  We  may,  indeed,  be  de- 
based as  well  as  ennobled  by  them ;  but  then  the  fault  is 
not  in  the  large  sails,  but  in  the  ill  conduct  of  the  pilot, 
if  our  vessel  miss  the  haven."  When  one  commended  a 
certain  king  of  Sparta  for  a  gentle,  a  good,  and  a  meek 
prince,  his  colleague  said,  "  How  can  he  be  good  who  is 
not  an  enemy  even  to  vicious  persons  ?  "  Erasmus  said 
of  Luther  that  there  were  two  natures  in  him :  sometimes 
he  wrote  like  an  apostle,  sometimes  like  a  raving  ribald. 
"  When  he  was  angry,  invectives  rushed  from  him  like 
bowlder  rocks  down  a  mountain  torrent  in  flood."  "  The 
same  man,"  said  Heine,  of  Luther,  "  who  could  scold 
like  a  fish-wife  could  be  as  gentle  as  a  tender  maiden. 
At  times  he  was  as  fierce  as  the  storm  that  uproots  oaks  ; 
and  then  again  he  was  as  mild  as  the  zephyr  caressing 
the  violets The  refinement  of  Erasmus,  the  mild- 
ness of  Melancthon,  could  never  have  brought  us  so  far 
as  the  godlike  brutality  of  Brother  Martin."  But  there 
was  no  trace  of  vanity  about  him.  "  Do  not  call  your- 
selves Lutherans,"  he  said  ;  "  call  yourselves  Christians. 
Who  and  what  is  Luther  ?  Has  Luther  been  crucified 
for  the  world  ?  " 

"The  Latin  tongue,"  says  Montaigne,  "is,  as  it  were, 
natural  to  me  ;  I  understand  it  better  than  French,  but  I 
have  not  used  to  speak  it,  nor  hardly  to  write  it,  these 
forty  years  ;  and  yet,  upon  an  extreme  and  sudden  emo- 
tion, which  I  have  fallen  into  twice  or  thrice  in  my  life, 
and  once  on  seeing  my  father  in  perfect  health,  fall  upon 
me  in  a  swoon,  I  have  always  uttered  my  first  outcries 
and  ejaculations  in  Latin  ;  nature  starting  up  and  forci- 
bly expressing  itself,  in  spite  of  so  long  a  discontinua 


48  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

tion."     "Nature,"  says  Bacon,  "will  be  buried  a  great 
time,  and  yet  revive  upon  the   occasion  or  temptation  ; 
like  as  it  was  with  ^sop's  damsel,  turned  from  a  cat  to  a 
woman,  who  sat  very  demurely  at  the  board's  end  till  a 
mouse  ran  before  her."     "A  frog,"  said  Publius  Syrus, 
"  would  leap  from  a  throne  of  gold  into  a  puddle."     In 
Froissart's  Chronicles  there  is  an  account  of  a  reverend 
monk  who  had  been  a  robber  in  the  early  part  of  his  life, 
md  who,  when  he  grew  old,  used  feelingly  to  lament  that 
he  had  ever  changed  his  profession.     He  said  "  it  was  a 
goodly  sight  to  sally  out  from  his  castle,  and  to  see  a  troop 
of  jolly  friars  coming  riding  that  way,  with  their  mules 
well  laden  with  viands  and  rich  stores,  to   advance  to- 
ward them,  to  attack  and  overthrow  them,  returning  to 
the  castle  with  a  noble  booty."     Layard  relates  an  inci- 
dent of  the  party  of  Arabs  which  for  some  time  had  been 
employed  to  assist  him  in  excavating  amongst  the  ruins 
of  Nineveh.     One  evening,  after  their  day's  work,  he  ob- 
served them  following  a  flock  of  sheep  belonging  to  the 
people  of  the  village,  shouting  their  war-cry,  flourishing 
their  swords,  and  indulging  in  the  most  extravagant  ges- 
ticulations.    He  asked  one  of  the  most  active  of  the  party 
to  explain  to  him  the  cause  of  such  violent  proceedings.  • 
"  O   Bey !  "  they  exclaimed   almost  together,    "  God   be 
praised,  we  have  eaten  butter  and  wheaten  bread  under 
your  shadow,  and  are  content ;  but  an  Arab  is  an  Arab.    It 
is  not  for  a  man  to  carry  about  dirt  in  baskets,  and  to  use 
a  spade  all  his  life  ;  he  should  be  with  his  sword  and  his 
mare  in  the  desert.     We  are  sad  as  we  think  of  the  days 
when  we  plundered  the  Anayza,  and  we  must  have  excite- 
ment or  our  hearts  must  break.     Let  us  then  believe  that 
these  are  the  sheep  we  have  taken  from  the  enemy,  and 
tliat  we  are  driving  them  to  our  tents."     And  off  they  ran, 
raising  their  wild  cry,  and  flourishing  their  swords,  to  the 
no  small  alarm  of  the  shepherd,  who  saw  his  sheep  scam- 
pering in  all  directions.    Hazlitt  related  an  Indian  legend 


EXTREMES.  49 

of  a  Brahman,  who  was  so  devoted  to  abstract  meditation, 
that  in  the  pursuit  of  philosophy  he  quite  forgot  his  moral 
duties,  and  neglected  ablution.  For  this  he  was  degraded 
from  the  rank  of  humanity,  and  transformed  into  a  mon- 
key. But  even  when  a  monkey  he  retained  his  original 
propensities,  for  he  kept  apart  from  other  monkeys,  and 
had  no  other  delight  than  that  of  eating  cocoanuts  and 
studying  metaphysics.  "  Perhaps  few  narratives  in  his- 
tory or  mythology,"  says  Carlyle,  "  are  more  significant 
than  that  Moslem  one  of  Moses  and  the  Dwellers  by  the 
Dead  Sea.  A  tribe  of  men  dwelt  on  the  shores  of  that 
same  asphaltic  lake  ;  and  having  forgotten,  as  we  are  all 
too  prone  to  do,  the  inner  facts  of  Nature,  and  taken  up 
with  the  falsities  and  other  semblances  of  it,  were  fallen 
into  sad  conditions,  —  verging,  indeed,  toward  a  certain 
far  deeper  lake.  Whereupon  it  pleased  kind  Heaven  to 
send  them  the  prophet  Moses,  with  an  instructive  word 
of  warning  out  of  which  might  have  sprung  '  remedial 
measures  '  not  a  few.  But  no  :  the  men  of  the  Dead  Sea 
discovered,  as  the  valet  species  always  does  in  heroes  or 
prophets,  no  comeliness  in  Moses ;  listened  with  real  te- 
dium to  Moses,  with  light  grinning,  or  splenetic  sniffs  and 
sneers,  affecting  even  to  yawn  ;  and  signified,  in  short, 
that  they  found  him  a  humbug,  and  even  a  bore.  Such 
was  the  candid  theory  these  men  of  the  asphalt  lake 
formed  to  themselves  of  Moses,  that  probably  he  was  a 
humbug,  that  certainly  he  was  a  bore.  Moses  withdrew ; 
but  Nature  and  her  rigorous  veracities  did  not  withdraw. 
The  men  of  the  Dead  Sea,  when  we  next  went  to  visit 
them,  were  all  changed  into  apes,  sitting  on  the  trees 
there,  grinning  now  in  the  most  unaffected  manner  ;  gib- 
bering and  chattering  very  genuine  nonsense  ;  finding  the 
whole  universe  now  a  most  indisputable  humbug !  The 
universe  has  become  a  humbug  to  those  apes  who  thought 
it  one.  There  they  sit  and  chatter,  to  this  hour :  only,  I 
believe,  every  Sabbath,  there  returns  to  them  a  bewil- 
4 


50  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

dered  half-consciousness,  half-reminiscence  ;  and  they  sit 
with  their  wizened,  smoke-dried  visages,  and  such  an  air 
of  supreme  tragicality  as  apes  may,  looking  out  tlirough 
those  blinking,  smoke-bleared  eyes  of  theirs,  into  the 
wonderfulest  universal  smoky  twilight  and  undecipher- 
able disordered  dusk  of  things  ;  wholly  an  uncertainty, 
unintelligibility,  they  and  it,  and  for  commentary  thereon, 
here  and  there  an  unmusical  chatter  or  mew,  —  truest, 
tragicalest  humbug  conceivable  by  the  mind  of  man  or 
ape  !  They  made  no  use  of  their  souls  ;  and  so  have  lost 
them.  Their  worship  on  the  Sabbath  now  is  to  roost 
there,  with  unmusical  screeches,  and  half-remember  that 
they  had  souls."  The  shark  is  said  to  have  been  the  god 
the  Sandwich  Islanders,  in  their  savage  state,  chiefly  wor- 
shiped, or  sought  to  propitiate.  In  their  present  semi- 
civilized,  semi-Christianized  condition,  it  is  stated,  they 
pray,  and  sing,  and  moralize,  in  fair  weather ;  but  when 
they  get  into  trouble  they  are  apt  to  call  upon  the  shark- 
god  of  their  fathers  for  help  or  deliverance. 

Sir  Walter  Scott  used  to  tell  a  story  of  a  placid  min- 
ister, near  Dundee,  who,  in  preaching  on  Jonah,  .said, 
"  Ken  ye,  brethren,  what  fish  it  was  that  swallowed  him  ? 
Aiblins  ye  may  think  it  was  a  shark ;  nae,  nae,  my  breth- 
ren, it  was  nae  shark  ;  or  aiblins  ye  may  think  it  was  a 
sammon  ;  nae,  nae,  my  brethren,  it  was  nae  sammon  ;  or 
aiblins  ye  may  think  it  was  a  dolphin  ;  nae,  nae,  my 
brethren,  it  was  nae  dolphin."  Here  an  old  woman, 
thinking  to  help  her  master  out  of  a  dead  lift,  cried  out, 
*  Aiblins,  sir,  it  was  a  dunter  "  (the  vulgar  name  of  a 
species  of  whale  common  to  the  Scotch  coast).  "Aib- 
lins, madam,  ye  're  an  auld  witch  for  taking  the  word  of 
God  out  of  my  mouth,"  was  the  reply  of  the  disappointed 
ihetorician.  As  Dr.  Johnson  was  riding  in  a  carriage 
through  London  on  a  rainy  day,  he  overtook  a  poor 
woman  carrying  a  baby,  without  any  protection  from  the 
weather.     Making  the  driver  stop  the  coach,  he  invited 


EXTREMES.  5I 

the  poor  woman  to  get  in  with  her  child,  which  she  did. 
After  she  had  seated  herself,  the  doctor  said  to  her,  "  My 
good  woman,  I  think  it  most  likely  that  the  motion  of  the 
coach  will  wake  your  child  in  a  little  while,  and  I  wish 
you  to  understand  that  if  you  talk  any  baby-talk  to  it,  you 
will  have  to  get  out  of  the  coach."  As  the  doctor  had 
ar.ticipated,  the  child  soon  awoke,  and  the  forgetful 
mother  exclaimed  to  it :  "Oh!  the  little  dear,  is  he  going 
to  open  his  eyesy-pysy  ?  "  "  Stop  the  coach,  driver  !  " 
shouted  Johnson  ;  and  the  woman  had  to  get  out  and 
finish  her  journey  on  foot.  Frederick  William,  of  Prus- 
sia, father  of  the  great  Frederick,  had  a  way  of  address- 
ing, familiarly,  the  people  he  met  in  the  streets  of  Berlin, 
utterly  indifferent,  we  are  told,  to  his  own  dignity  and  to 
the  feelings  of  others ;  if  he  could  devise  something  that 
was  not  quite  agreeable,  it  was  sure  to  be  said.  The  fear 
of  such  encounters  sometimes  made  nervous  people  in- 
discreetly evade  the  royal  presence.  One  Jew  having 
fairly  taken  to  his  heels,  he  was  pursued  by  the  king  in 
hot  haste.  "  Why  did  you  run  away  from  me  ?  "  said  the 
king,  when  he  came  up  with  him  in  breathless  dudgeon. 
"  From  fear,"  answered  the  Jew,  in  the  most  ingenuous 
manner ;  but  the  rejoinder  of  the  king  was  a  hearty 
thwack  with  his  cane,  who  roared  out  that  he  wished 
himself  to  be  loved  and  not  to  be  feared ! 

A  writer  upon  Holland  —  its  Martyrs  and  Heroes, 
gives  an  account  of  Richard  Willemson,  a  worthy  bur- 
gess of  Aspern,  and  an  Anabaptist,  who  was  chased  by 
an  officer  of  justice.  It  was  a  winter  day,  and  he  fled 
across  the  ice.  The  frozen  surface,  however,  was  so  thin 
that  the  fugitive  had  the  utmost  difficulty  in  crossing,  and 
nis  pursuer  fell  through.  Perceiving  his  danger,  Willem- 
son returned  and  at  the  risk  of  his  own  life  saved  his 
enemy.  Touched  with  such  generosity,  the  officer  would 
gladly  have  let  his  prisoner  go  ;  but  the  burgomaster,  who 
witnessed  the  occurrence,  called  out,  "  Fulfil  your  oath," 
and  the  good  Christian  was  led  away  to  a  fiery  martyrdom 


52  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

Dr.  Livingstone,  when  he  first  went  into  Africa,  as  a 
missionary,  attached  himself  to  the  tribe  of  Bakwains. 
Their  chief,  Sechele,  embraced  Christianity,  and  became 
an  assiduous  reader  of  the  Bible,  the  eloquence  of  Isaiah 
being  peculiarly  acceptable  to  him,  and  he  was  wont  to 
say,  "  He  was  a  fine  man,  that  Isaiah :  he  knew  how  to 
speak."  But  his  people  were  not  so  ready  for  conversion, 
although  he  calmly  proposed  to  have  them  flogged  into 
faith:  "Do  you  imagine,"  he  said,  "these  people  will 
ever  believe  by  your  merely  talking  to  them  ?  I  can 
make  them  do  nothing  except  by  thrashing  them ;  and  if 
you  like  I  shall  call  my  head  men,  ana  with  our  litupa 
(whips  of  rhinoceros  hide)  we  will  soon  make  them  be- 
lieve altogether."  It  has  been  stated  upon  authority  that 
when  a  fugitive  from  one  of  the  early  missions  in  New 
California  was  captured,  he  was  brought  back  again  to 
the  mission,  where  he  was  bastinadoed,  and  an  iron  rod 
of  a  foot  or  a  foot  and  a  half  long,  and  an  inch  in  di- 
ameter, was  fastened  to  one  of  his  feet,  which  had  the 
double  use  of  preventing  him  from  repeating  the  attempt, 
and  of  frightening  others  from  imitating  him.  Southey 
says  that  one  of  the  missionaries  whom  Virgilius,  the 
bishop  of  Salzburg,  sent  among  the  Slavonic  people, 
made  the  converted  serfs  sit  with  him  at  table,  where 
wine  was  served  to  them  in  gilt  beakers,  while  he  ordered 
their  unbaptized  lords  to  sit  on  the  ground,  out  of  doors, 
where  the  food  and  wine  was  thrown  before  them,  and 
they  were  left  to  serve  themselves.  Among  our  Norse 
forefathers,  King  Olaf's  mode  of  converting  Eyvind  to 
Christianity  was  to  put  a  pan  of  glowing  coals  on  his 
belly,  which  burst  asunder.  "  Wilt  thou  not,  Eyvind,  be- 
lieve in  Christ  ?  "  asks  Olaf,  in  excellent  faith.  Another 
argument  was  an  adder  put  into  the  mouth  of  the  reluc- 
tant disciple  Rand,  who  refused  to  believe. 

"  Seeing  a  large  building,"  relates  an  English  gentle- 
man, "  I   asked  a  man  who   looked  like  a  journeyman 


EXTREMES.  53 

weaver  what  it  was.  He  told  me  a  grammar-school. 
'But,  sir,'  he  added,  'I  think  it  would  become  you  better 
on  the  Lord's  day  morning  to  be  reading  your  Bible  at 
home,  than  asking  about  public  buildings.'  I  very  quickly 
answered :  '  My  friend,  you  have  given  me  a  piece  of 
very  good  advice  ;  let  me  give  you  one,  and  we  may  both 
profit  by  our  meeting.  Beware  of  spiritual  pride.'  "  "  In 
one  of  the  debates  on  the  Catholic  question,"  said  Lord 
Byron,  "  when  we  were  either  equal  or  within  one  (I  for- 
get which),  I  had  been  sent  for  in  great  haste  to  a  ball, 
which  I  quitted,  I  confess,  somewhat  reluctantly,  to 
emancipate  five  millions  of  people."  Some  ladies  ban- 
tering Selwyn  on  his  want  of  feeling,  in  attending  to  see 
Lord  Lovat's  head  cut  off,  "  Why,"  he  said,  "  I  made 
amends  by  going  to  the  undertaker's  to  see  it  sewn  on 
again."  "  I  have,"  says  Heine,  "the  most  peaceable  dis- 
position. My  desires  are  a  modest  cottage  with  thatched 
roof  —  but  a  good  bed,  good  fare,  fresh  milk  and  butter, 
flowers  by  my  window,  and  a  few  fine  trees  before  the 
door.  And  if  the  Lord  wished  to  fill  my  cup  of  happi- 
ness. He  would  grant  me  the  pleasure  of  se^eing  some  six 
or  seven  of  my  enemies  hanged  on  those  trees.  With  a 
heart  moved  to  pity,  I  would,  before  their  death,  forgive 
the  injury  they  had  done  me  during  their  lives.  Yes,  we 
ought  to  forgive  our  enemies  —  but  not  until  they  are 
hanged."  Some  would  pursue  them  after  they  are  hanged. 
"Our  measure  of  rewards  and  punishments,"  says  Thack- 
eray, "  is  most  partial  and  incomplete,  absurdly  inade- 
quate, utterly  worldly,  and  we  wish  to  continue  it  into 
the  next  world.  Into  that  next  and  awful  world  we  strive 
tu  pursue  men,  and  send  after  them  our  impotent  party 
verdicts,  of  condemnation  or  acquittal.  We  set  up  our 
paltry  little  rods  to  measure  Heaven  immeasurable,  as  if, 
in  comparison  to  that,  Newton's  mind,  or  Pascal's,  or 
Shakespeare's,  was  any  loftier  than  mine  ;  as  if  the  ray 
which  travels  from  the  sun  would  reach  me  sooner  than 


54  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

the  man  who  blacks  my  boots.  Measured  by  that  alti- 
tude, the  tallest  and  the  smallest  among  us  are  so  alike 
diminutive  and  pitifully  base  that  I  say  we  should  take 
no  count  of  the  calculation,  and  it  is  a  meanness  to 
reckon  the  difference." 

Tertullian,  according  to  Lecky,  had  written  a  treatise 
dissuading  the  Christians  of  his  day  from  frequenting  the 
public  spectacles.  He  had  collected  on  the  subject  many 
arguments,  some  of  them  very  powerful,  and  others  ex- 
tremely grotesque  ;  but  he  perceived  that  to  make  his  ex- 
liortations  forcible  to  the  majority  of  his  readers,  he  must 
point  them  to  some  counter-attraction.  He  accordingly 
proceeded  —  and  his  style  assumed  a  richer  glow  and  a 
more  impetuous  eloquence  as  he  rose  to  the  congenial 
theme  —  to  tell  them  that  a  spectacle  was  reserved  for 
them,  so  fascinating  and  so  attractive  that  the  most  joy- 
ous festivals  of  earth  faded  in  insignificance  by  the  com- 
parison. That  spectacle  was  the  agonies  of  their  fellow- 
countrymen  as  they  writhe  amid  the  torments  of  hell. 
"  What ! "  he  exclaimed,  "  shall  be  the  magnitude  of  that 
scene  !  How  shall  I  wonder  !  How  shall  I  laugh  !  How 
shall  I  rejoice  !  How  shall  I  triumph,  when  I  behold  so 
many  and  such  illustrious  kings,  who  were  said  to  have 
mounted  into  heaven,  groaning  with  Jupiter  their  god  in 
the  lowest  darkness  of  hell !  Then  shall  the  soldiers 
who  had  persecuted  the  name  of  Christ  burn  in  more 
cruel  fire  than  any  they  had  kindled  for  the  saints.  Then 
shall  the  tragedians  pour  forth  in  their  own  misfortune 
more  piteous  cries  than  those  with  which  they  had  made 
the  theatre  to  resound,  while  the  comedian's  powers  shal.' 
be  better  seen  as  he  becomes  more  flexible  by  the  heal. 
Then  shall  the  driver  of  the  circus  stand  forth  to  view, 
all  blushing  in  his  flaming  chariot,  and  the  gladiators 
pierced,  not  by  spears,  but  by  darts  of  fire.  Compared 
with  such  spectacles,  with  such  subjects  of  triumph  as 
these,  what  can  praetor  or  consul,  quaestor  or  pontiff,  af- 


EXTREMES.  55 

ford  ?     And  even  now  faith  can  bring  them  near,  imagi- 
nation can  depict  them  as  present !  " 

Crabb  Robinson  says  some  one  at  a  party  at  which  he 
was  present,  abusing  Mahometanism  in  a  commonplace 
way,  said  :  "  Its  heaven  is  quite  material."  He  was 
met  with  the  quiet  remark,  "  So  is  the  Christian's  hell ;" 
to  which  there  was  no  reply.  In  the  time  of  TertulUan, 
the  angel  in  the  Last  Judgment  was  constantly  repre- 
sented weighing  the  souls  in  a  literal  balance,  while  devils 
clinging  to  the  scales  endeavored  to  disturb  the  equilib- 
rium. The  redbreast,  according  to  one  popular  legend, 
was  commissioned  by  the  Deity  to  carry  a  drop  of  water 
to  the  souls  of  unbaptized  infants  in  hell,  and  its  breast 
was  singed  in  piercing  the  flames.  In  Wales,  the  robin 
is  said  to  bear  in  its  bill  one  drop  of  water  daily  to  the 
place  of  torment,  in  order  to  extinguish  the  flames. 

A  Calvinistic  divine,  of  the  name  of  Petit  Pierre,  was 
ejected  from  his  church  at  Neufchatel  for  preaching  and 
publishing  the  doctrine  that  the  damned  would  at  some 
future  period  be  pardoned.  A  member  sai4  to  him,  "  My 
good  friend,  I  no  more  believe  in  the  eternity  of  hell 
than  yourself  ;  but  recollect  that  it  may  be  no  bad  thing, 
perhaps,  for  your  servant,  your  tailor,  and  your  lawyer, 
to  believe  in  it."  Whitefield  was  once  preaching  in  Ha- 
worth,  and  made  use  of  some  such  expression,  as  that  he 
"hoped  there  was  no  need  to  say  much  to  this  congrega- 
tion, as  they  had  sat  under  so  pious  and  godly  a  minister 
for  so  many  years  ; "  whereupon  Mr.  Grimshaw,  the  cu- 
rate, stood  up  in  his  place,  and  said  with  a  loud  voice, 
*'  Oh,  sir !  for  God's  sake  do  not  speak  so.  I  pray  you 
do  not  flatter  them.  I  fear  the  greater  part  of  them  are 
going  to  hell  with  their  eyes  open."  Cowper's  friend, 
Newton,  says  this  in  one  of  his  letters :  "  A  friend  of 
mine  was  desired  to  visit  a  woman  in  prison  ;  he  was  in- 
formed of  her  evil  habits  of  life,  and  therefore  spoke 
strongly  of  the  terrors  of  the  I,ord,  and  the  curses  of  the 


56  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

law  :  she  heard  him  a  while,  and  then  laughed  in  his 
face  ;  u^Don  this  he  changed  his  note,  and  spoke  of  the 
Saviour,  and  what  he  had  done  and  suffered  for  sinners. 
He  had  not  talked  long  in  this  strain  before  he  saw  a 
tear  or  two  in  her  eyes  :  at  length  she  interrupted  him  by 
saying :  '  Why,  sir,  do  you  think  there  can  be  any  hope 
of  mercy  for  me  ? '  He  answered,  '  Yes,  if  you  feel  your 
need  of  it,  and  are  willing  to  seek  it  in  God's  appointed 
way.  I  am  sure  it  is  as  free  for  you  as  for  myself.'  She 
replied,  '  Ah,  if  I  had  thought  so,  I  should  not  have  been 
in  this  prison.  I  long  since  settled  it  in  my  mind  that  J 
was  utterly  lost ;  that  I  had  sinned  beyond  all  possibility 
of  forgiveness,  and  that  made  me  desperate.' "  Monod 
relates  that  the  Moravian  missionaries  who  carried  the 
gospel  to  the  Greenlanders  thought  it  best  to  prepare 
the  minds  of  the  savages  to  receive  it,  by  declaring  to 
them  at  first  only  the  general  truths  of  religion  ;  the  ex- 
istence of  God,  the  obedience  due  to  his  laws,  and  a 
future  retribution.  Thus  passed  away  several  years,  dur- 
ing which  they  saw  no  fruit  of  their  labors.  At  last  they 
ventured  one  day  to  speak  to  them  of  the  Saviour,  and 
read  to  them  the  history  of  his  passion.  They  had  no 
sooner  done  so,  than  one  of  the  hearers,  named  Kajar- 
nak,  approached  the  table  where  the  missionary  Beck 
was  sitting,  and  said  to  him  in  an  earnest,  affecting  tone : 
"  What  is  that  you  tell  us  ?  Repeat  that  once  more.  I 
too  will  be  saved  !  "  ("  The  most  awfully  tremendous  of 
all  metaphysical  divines,"  wrote  an  eminent  Englishman, 
"is  the  American  ultra  Calvinist,  Jonathan  Edwards, 
whose  book  on  Original  Sin  I  unhappily  read  when  a 
very  young  man.     It  did  me  an  irreparable  mischief.") 

"  Soon  after  the  accession  of  James  I.  to  the  throne  of 
England,"  writes  Lecky,  in  his  History  of  Rationalism  in 
Europe,  "  a  law  was  enacted  which  subjected  witches  to 
death  on  the  first  conviction,  even  though  they  should 
have  inflicted  no  injury  upon  their  neighbors.     This  law 


EXTREMES.  57 

was  passed  when  Coke  was  attorney  general,  and  Bacon 
a  member  of  Parliament;  and  twelve  bishops  sat  upon 
the  commission  to  which  it  was  referred.  The  prosecu- 
tions were  rapidly  multiplied  throughout  the  country,  but 
especially  in  Lancashire,  and  at  the  same  time  the  gen- 
eral tone  of  literature  was  strongly  tinged  with  the  super- 
si  ition.  Sir  Thomas  Browne  declared  that  those  who 
denied  the  existence  of  witchcraft  were  not  only  '  infidels 
but  also,  by  implication,  atheists.'  In  Cromwell's  time 
there  was  still  greater  persecution.  The  county  of  Suf- 
folk was  especially  agitated,  and  the  famous  witch-finder, 
Matthew  Hopkins,  pronounced  it  to  be  infested  with 
witches.  A  commission  was  accordingly  issued,  and  two 
distinguished  Presbyterian  divines  were  selected  by  the 
Parliament  to  accompany  it.  It  would  have  been  impos- 
sible to  take  any  measure  more  calculated  to  stimulate 
the  prosecutions,  and  we  accordingly  find  that  in  Suffolk 
sixty  persons  were  hung  for  witchcraft  in  a  single  year. 
In  1664  two  women  were  hung  in  Suffolk,  under  a  sen- 
tence of  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  who  took  the  opportunity  of 
declaring  that  the  reality  of  witchcraft  was  unquestion- 
able ;  '  for,  first,  the  Scriptures  had  affirmed  so  much ; 
and,  secondly,  the  wisdom  of  all  nations  had  provided 
laws  against  such  persons,  which  is  an  argument  of  their 
confidence  of  such  a  crime.'  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  who 
was  a  great  physician,  as  well  as  a  great  writer,  was 
called  as  a  witness,  and  swore  'that  he  was  clearly  of 
opinion  that  the  persons  were  bewitched.'  " 

Here  is  a  terrible  story,  perfectly  well  authenticated, 
taken  from  the  official  report  of  the  proceedings  by  an 
English  historian:  "Toward  the  end  of  1593  there  was 
trouble  in  the  family  of  the  Earl  of  Orkney.  His  brother 
laid  a  plot  to  murder  him,  and  was  said  to  have  sought 
the  help  of  a  notorious  witch  called  Alison  Balfour. 
When  Alison  Balfour's  life  was  looked  into,  no  evidence 
could  be  found  connecting  her  either  with  the  particular 


58  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

offense  or  with  witchcraft  in  general ;  but  it  was  enough 
in  these  matters  to  be  accused.  She  swore  she  was  inno- 
cent; but  her  guilt  was  only  held  to  be  aggravated  by 
perjury.  She  was  tortured  again  and  again.  Her  legs 
were  put  in  the  caschilaws,  —  an  iron  frame  which  was 
gradually  heated  till  it  burned  into  the  flesh, — but  no 
confession  could  be  wrung  from  her.  The  caschilaws 
failed  utterly,  and  something  else  had  to  be  tried.  She 
had  a  husband,  a  son,  and  a  daughter,  a  child  seven 
years  old.  As  her  own  sufferings  did  not  work  upon 
her,  she  might  be  touched,  perhaps,  by  the  suffering  of 
those  who  were  dear  tp  her.  They  were  brought  into 
court,  and  placed  at  her  side,  and  the  husband  first 
placed  in  the  '  long  irons  '  —  some  accursed  instrument, 
I  know  not  what.  Still  the  devil  did  not  yield.  She 
bore  this ;  and  her  son  was  next  operated  on.  The  boy's 
legs  were  set  in  '  the  boot,'  —  the  iron  boot  you  may  have 
heard  of.  The  wedges  were  driven  in,  which,  when  forced 
home,  crushed  the  very  bone  and  marrow.  Fifty-seven 
mallet  strokes  were  delivered  upon  the  wedges.  Yet  this, 
too,  failed.  There  was  no  confession  yet.  So,  last  of 
all,  the  little  daughter  was  taken.  There  was  a  machine 
called  the  piniwinkies  —  a  kind  of  thumb-screw,  which 
brought  blood  from  under  the  finger-nails,  with  a  pain  suc- 
cessfully terrible.  These  things  were  applied  to  the  poor 
child's  hj:nds,  and  the  mother's  constancy  broke  down, 
and  she  said  she  would  admit  anything  they  wished.  She 
confessed  her  witchcraft,  —  so  tried,  she  would  have  con- 
fessed to  the  seven  deadly  sins,  —  and  then  she  was 
burned,  recalling  her  confession,  and  with  her  last  breath 
protested  her  innocence." 

"There  was  one  Mary  Johnson  try'd  at  Hartford  in 
this  countrey,"  says  Cotton  Mather,  in  his  Magnalia 
Christi  Americana,  "  upon  an  indictment  of  *  familiarity 
with  the  devil,'  and  was  found  guilty  thereof,  chiefly  upon 
her  own   confession In  the  time  of   her  impris- 


EXTREMES 


59 


on  men  t,  the  famous  Mr.  Stone  was  at  great  pains  to  pro- 
mote her  conversion  from  the  devil  to  God  ;  and  she  was 
by  the  best  observers  judged  very  penitent,  both  before 
her  execution  and  at  it ;  and  she  went  out  of  the  world 
with  comfortable  hopes  of  mercy  from  God  through  the 
merit  of  our  Saviour.  Being  asked  what  she  built  her 
hopes  upon,  she  answered,  Upon  these  words :  '  Come 
unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will 
give  you  rest ; '  and  these  :  '  There  is  a  fountain  set  open 
for  sin  and  uncleanness.'  And  she  dy'd  in  a  frame  ex- 
treamly  to  the  satisfaction  of  them  that  were  spectators 
of  it." 

In  1768  John  Wesley  prefaced  an  account  of  an  ap- 
parition that  had  been  related  by  a  girl  named  Elizabeth 
Hobson,  by  some  extremely  remarkable  sentences  on  the 
subject.  "  It  is  true,  likewise,"  he  wrote,  "  that  the  Eng- 
lish in  general,  and,  indeed,  most  of  the  men  of  learning 
in  Europe,  have  given  up  all  account  of  witches  and  appa- 
ritions as  mere  old  wives'  fables.  I  am  sorry  for  it,  and 
I  willingly  take  this  opportunity  of  entering  my  solemn 
protest  against  this  violent  compliment  which  so  many 
that  believe  the  Bible  pay  to  those  that  do  not  believe  it. 
I  owe  them  no  such  service.  I  take  knowledge  that  these 
are  at  the  bottom  of  the  outcry  which  has  been  raised, 
and  with  such  insolence  spread  through  the  land,  in  di- 
rect opposition,  not  only  to  the  Bible,  but  to  the  suffrage 
of  the  wisest  and  best  men  in  all  ages  and  nations.  They 
well  know  (whether  Christians  know  it  or  not)  that  the 
giving  up  of  witchcraft  is  in  effect  giving  up  the  Bible." 

"  In  the  first  year  of  this  persecution.  Cotton  Mather 
wrote  a  history  of  the  earliest  of  the  trials.  This  history 
was  introduced  to  the  English  public  by  Richard  Baxter, 
who  declared  in  his  preface  that  'that  man  must  be  a 
very  obdurate  Sadducee  who  would  not  believe  it.'  Not 
content  with  having  thus  given  the  weight  of  his  great 
name  to  the  superstition,  Baxter  'n  the  following  year 


6o  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

published  his  treatise  on  The  Certainty  of  the  World  of 
Spirits  ;  in  which  he  collected,  with  great  industry,  an 
immense  number  of  witch  cases  ;  reverted  in  extremely 
laudatory  terms  to  Cotton  Mather  and  his  crusade  ;  and 
denounced,  in  unmeasured  language,  all  who  were  skepti- 
cal upon  the  subject.  This  work  appeared  in  1691,  when 
the  panic  in  America  had  not  yet  reached  its  height ;  and 
being  widely  circulated  there,  is  said  to  have  contributed 
much  to  stimulate  the  persecutions.  The  Pilgrim  Fathers 
had  brought  to  America  the  seeds  of  the  persecution  ; 
and  at  the  same  time  when  it  was  rapidly  fading  in  Eng- 
land, it  flourished  with  fearful  vigor  in  Massachusetts. 
Cotton  Mather  and  Parris  proclaimed  the  frequency  of 
the  crime  ;  and,  being  warmly  supported  by  their  brother 
divines,  they  succeeded  in  creating  a  panic  through  the 
whole  country.  A  commission  was  issued.  A  judge 
named  Stoughton,  who  appears  to  have  been  a  perfect 
creature  of  the  clergy,  conducted  the  trials.  Scourgings 
and  tortures  were  added  to  the  terrorism  of  the  pulpit, 
and  many  confessions  were  obtained.  The  few  who  vent- 
ured to  oppose  the  prosecutions  were  denounced  as  Sad- 
ducees  and  infidels.  Multitudes  were  thrown  into  prison, 
others  fled  from  the  country,  abandoning  their  property, 
and  twenty-seven  persons  were  executed.  An  old  man  of 
eighty  was  pressed  to  death'  —  a  horrible  sentence,  which 
was  never  afterward  executed  in  America.  [Giles  Corey 
was  the  name  of  the  poor  victim.  He  refused  to  plead, 
to  save  his  property  from  confiscation.  He  urged  the  exe- 
cutioners, it  is  stated  by  Upham,  in  his  History  of  Witch- 
craft, to  increase  the  weight  which  was  crushing  him; 
he  told  them  that  it  was  no  use  to  expect  him  to  yield  ; 
that  there  could  be  but  one  way  of  ending  the  matter,  and 
that  they  might  as  well  pile  on  the  stones.  Calef  says, 
that  as  his  body  yielded  to  the  pressure,  his  tongue  pro 
truded  from  his  mouth,  and  an  official  forced  it  back  with 
his   cane.]     The   ministers  of   Boston  and  Charlestown 


EXTREMES.  6 1 

drew  up  an  address,  warmly  thanking  the  commissioners 
for  Iheir  zeal,  and  expressing  their  hope  that  it  would 
never  be  relaxed." 

There  is  no  more  painful  reading  than  this  except  the 
trials  of  the  witches  themselves.  "These,"  says  Lowell, 
"  awaken,  by  turns,  pity,  indignation,  disgust,  and  dread, 
—  dread,  at  the  thought  of  what  the  human  mind  may  be 
brought  to  believe  not  only  probable,  but  proven.  But  it 
is  well  to  be  put  upon  our  guard  by  lessons  of  this  kind, 
for  the  wisest  man  is  in  some  respects  little  better  than 
a  madman  in  a  straight-waistcoat  of  habit,  public  opinion, 
prudence,  or  the  like.  Skepticism  began  ;it  length  to 
make  itself  felt,  but  it  spread  slowly,  and  was  shy  of  pro- 
claiming itself.  The  orthodox  party  was  net  backward 
to  charge  with  sorcery  whoever  doubted  thrir  facts  or 
pitied  their  victims.  The  mob,  as  it  always  is,  was  or- 
thodox. It  was  dangerous  to  doubt,  it  might  be  fatal  to 
deny." 

"The  spirit  of  party,"  quaintly  says  Bayle,  in  his  Criti- 
cal Dictionary,  discoursing  of  Margaret,  Queen  of  Na- 
varre, "the  attachment  to  a  sect,  and  even  zeal  for  ortho- 
doxy, produce  a  kind  of  ferment  in  the  humors  of  our 
body  ;  and  hence  the  medium  through  which  reason  ought 
to  behold  these  primitive  ideas  is  clouded  and  obscured. 
These  are  infirmities  which  will  attend  our  reason,  as  Ion<r 
as  it  shall  depend  upon  the  ministry  of  organs.  It  is  the 
same  thing  to  it,  as  the  low  and  middle  region  of  the  air, 
the  seat  of  vapors  and  meteors.  There  are  but  very  few 
persons  who  can  elevate  themselves  above  these  clouds, 
and  place  themselves  in  a  true  serenity.  If  any  one 
could  do  it,  we  must  say  of  him  what  Virgil  did  of 
Daphnis  :  — 

*  Daphnis,  the  guest  of  Heaven,  with  wondering  eyes, 
Views  in  the  milky- way  the  starry  skies ; 
And  far  beneath  him,  from  the  shining  sphere, 
Beholds  the  moving  clouds  and  rolling  year.' 


62  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

And  he  ■would  not  have  so  much  the  appearance  of  a  man, 
as  of  an  immortal  Being,  placed  upon  a  mountain  above 
the  region  of  wind  and  clouds.  There  is  almost  as  much 
necessity  for  being  above  the  passions  to  come  to  a 
knowledge  of  some  kind  of  truths,  as  to  act  virtuously." 
"  How  limited  is  human  reason,"  exclaims  Disraeli,  the 
younger,  "  the  profoundest  inquirers  are  most  conscious. 
We  are  not  indebted  to  the  reason  of  man  for  any  of  the 
great  achievements  which  are  the  landmarks  of  human 
action  and  human  progress.  It  was  not  reason  that  be- 
sieged Troy ;  it  was  not  reason  that  sent  forth  the  Sara- 
cen from  the  desert  to  conquer  the  world ;  that  inspired 
the  crusades  ;  that  instituted  the  monastic  orders  ;  it  was 
not  reason  that  produced  the  Jesuits ;  above  all,  it  was 
not  reason  that  enacted  the  French  Revolution.  Man  is 
only  truly  great  when  he  acts  from  the  passions  ;  never 
irresistible  but  when  he  appeals  to  the  imagination. 
Even  Mormon  counts  more  votaries  than  Bentham." 
".Let  us  not  dream,"  said  Goethe,  "  that  reason  can  ever 
be  popular.  Passions,  emotions,  may  be  made  popular; 
but  reason  remains  ever  the  property  of  an  elect  few." 
"  It  is  not  from  reason  and  prudence  that  people  marry," 
said  Dr.  Johnson,  *'  but  from  inclination.  A  man  is  poor  ; 
he  thinks  it  cannot  be  worse,  and  so  I  '11  e'en  marry 
Peggy."  '*  If  people,"  said  Thackeray,  "  only  made 
prudent  marriages,  what  a  stop  to  population  there  would 
«>e!" 


III. 

DISGUISES. 

Man,  poor  fellow,  would  be  a  curious  object  for  micro- 
scopic study.  If  it  were  possible  to  view  him  through 
powerful  glasses,  what  humiliating  resemblances  and  in- 
firmities would  be  discovered.  He  would  be  found  to 
have  innumerable  tentacula  and  appendages,  for  protec- 
tion and  warning,  and  especially  to  possess  unconceived 
of  apparatus  for  making  his  way  in  the  dark,  —  neces- 
sities to  him,  it  would  appear,  when  further  inspection 
of  the  creature  had  shown  him  to  be  —  blind.  At  last, 
he  finds  himself  obliged  to  rely  upon  such  qualities  and 
faculties  as  take  the  place  of  powers  and  eyes.  Cowardly, 
he  is  gregarious,  and  will  not  live  alone ;  weak,  he  con- 
sorts with  weakness,  to  acquire  strength ;  ignorant,  he 
contributes  the  least  bit  to  the  common  stock  of  intelli- 
gence, and  escapes  responsibility.  One  of  many,  he  has 
the  protection  of  the  mob  ;  embodying  others'  weak- 
nesses, he  is  strong  in  the  bundle  of  sticks ;  joining  his 
voice  with  the  million,  it  is  lost  in  the  confusion  of 
tongues.  Attacked,  he  is  fortified  by  his  society ;  down, 
he  will  rise  again  with  his  fellows  ;  stupid  with  the  rest, 
his  shame  is  unfelt  by  being  diffused.  In  any  extremity, 
there  is  safety  in  counsel ;  in  the  ranks,  he  cannot  run  ; 
in  the  crowd,  it  were  vain  to  think.  Weary  of  stagnation 
or  tired  by  the  eddies,  he  goes  with  the  current ;  unable 
to  stand  an  individual,  he  joins  with  a  party  ;  a  poor 
creature  of  God,  he  is  afraid  to  trust  Him  on  his  Word, 
and  flies  to  a  sect  with  a  creed  for  protection.  In  the 
wake  of   thought,   he   may  be   thoughtless  j    voting   the 


64  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

ticket,  he  is  a  patriot;  a  stiff  bigot,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  about  his  religion.  He  submits  to  be  thought  for 
as  a  child ;  to  be  cared  for  as  an  invalid ;  to  be  subor- 
dinated as  an  idiot.  Unequal  to  a  scheme  of  his  own,  he 
falls  into  one  already  devised  for  him ;  without  independ- 
ent views,  he  relies  upon  his  newspaper ;  without  implicit 
trust  in  God,  he  leans  upon  a  broken  reed  in  preference. 
Thus  his  business,  his  politics,  his  religion,  are  defined 
for  him,  and  are  of  easy  reference ;  indeed  it  may  be 
said  he  knows  them  by  heart,  so  little  there  is  of  them. 
Of  the  laws  of  trade,  political  economy,  essential  Chris< 
tianity,  he  may  be  as  ignorant  as  a  barbarian,  at  the  same 
time  be  complacent  and  respectable  in  his  ignorance. 
Acting  for  himself,  he  would  be  set  down  as  eccentric  by 
his  banker ;  thinking  for  himself,  he  would  be  thought  to 
be  too  uncertain  to  be  trustworthy  ;  living  virtuously, 
walking  humbly,  and  trusting  his  Creator  to  take  care  of 
his  creature,  he  would  be  an  object  of  suspicion,  even  if  he 
escaped  being  called  an  infidel.  His  tailor  determines  the 
cut  of  his  coat ;  the  street  defines  his  manners  and  morals  j 
custom  becomes  his  law,  and  compliance  his  gospel. 

Addison,  in  The  Spectator,  gives  an  account  of  a  gentle- 
man who  determined  to  live  and  dress  according  to  the 
rules  of  common  sense,  and  was  shut  up  in  a  lunatic 
asylum  in  consequence.  "  Custom,"  says  Carlyle,  "  doth 
make  dotards  of  us  all.  Philosophy  complains  that 
custom  has  hoodwinked  us  from  the  first;  that  we  do 
everything  by  custom,  even  believe  by  it ;  that  our  very 
axioms,  let  us  boast  of  free-thinking  as  we  may,  are  oft- 
enest  simply  such  beliefs  as  we  have  never  heard  ques- 
tioned." "  In  this  great  society  wide  lying  around  us," 
says  Emerson,  "  a  critical  analysis  would  find  very  few 
spontaneous  actions.  It  is  almost  all  custom  and  gross 
sense."  We  play  our  parts  so  faithfully,  not  to  say  con- 
scientiously, that  often  we  have  difficulty  in  placing  our- 
selves, whether  with  the  assumed  or  the  natural.     The 


DISGUISES.  65 

little  arts  and  artifices  we  thrive  by,  become  essentially  a 
part  of  us ;  and  in  the  jostle  and  conflict  —  the  greater  to 
devour  the  lesser  and  the  lesser  the  least  —  we  seem  im- 
pelled to  pursue  the  objects  and  ends  which  long  habit 
has  somehow  convinced  us  nature  particularly  suited  us 
to  pursue.  When  an  event  occurs  to  attract  attention  to 
our  follies  or  baseness,  it  has  not  the  effect  to  prompt  re- 
pentance, but  to  excite  our  cunning,  and  set  us  to  work 
to  find  excuses,  or  to  imagine  some  other  course  of  con^ 
duct  which  would  have  been  more  foolish  or  mischievous. 
"  We  keep  on  deceiving  ourselves  in  regard  to  our  faults, 
until  we,  at  last,  come  to  look  upon  them  as  virtues." 
Like  Selwyn,  the  accomplished  courtier  and  wit  in  the 
time  of  George  III.,  we  get  to  think  even  our  vices  neces- 
sities. After  a  night  of  elegant  rioting  and  debauch,  he 
tumbled  out  of  his  bed  at  noon  the  next  day,  and  reeling 
with  both  hands  upon  his  head  to  a  mirror  in  his  apart- 
ment, gazed  at  himself  and  soliloquized  :  "  I  look  and  feel 
most  villainously  mean  ;  but  it 's  life  —  hang  it,  it 's  life  !  " 
Lord  Bacon,  discoursing  upon  the  "  politic  knowledge 
of  ourselves,"  and  the  "wisdom  of  business,"  in  the 
Second  Book  of  the  Proficience  and  Advancement  of 
Learning,  says  :  "  The  covering  of  defects  is  of  no  less 
importance  than  the  valuing  of  good  parts ;  which  may 
be  done  in  three  manners,  by  caution,  by  color,  arfd  by 
confidence.  Caution  is  when  men  do  ingeniously  and 
discreetly  avoid  to  be  put  into  those  things  for  which  they 
are  not  proper :  whereas,  contrariwise,  bold  and  unquiet 
spirits  will  thrust  themselves  into  matters  without  differ- 
ence, and  so  publish  and  proclaim  all  their  wants.  Color  is, 
when  men  make  a  way  for  themselves,  to  have  a  construc- 
tion made  of  their  faults  and  wants,  as  proceeding  from 
a  better  cause,  or  intended  for  some  other  purpose :  for 
of  the  one  it  is  well  said,  '  Vice  often  lurks  in  the  like- 
ness of  virtue,'  and  therefore  whatsoever  want  a  man 
hath,  he  must  see  that  he  pretend  the  virtue  that  shadow- 


66  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

eth  it ;  as  if  he  be  dull,  he  must  affect  gravity ;  if  a  cow- 
ard, mildness;  and  so  the  rest:  for  the  second,  a  man 
must  frame  some  probable  cause  why  he  should  not  do 
his  best,  and  why  he  should  dissemble  his  abilities  ;  and 
for  that  purpose  must  use  to  dissemble  those  abilities 
which  are  notorious  in  him,  to  give  color  that  his  true 
wants  are  but  industries  and  dissimulations.  For  confi- 
dence, it  is  the  last  but  surest  remedy ;  namely,  to  de- 
press and  seem  to  despise  whatsoever  a  man  cannot  at' 
tain  ;  observing  the  good  principle  of  the  merchants, 
who  endeavor  to  raise  the  price  of  their  own  commodities, 
and  to  beat  down  the  price  of  others.  But  there  is  a  con- 
fidence that  passeth  this  other ;  which  is  to  face  out  a 
man's  own  defects,  in  seeming  to  conceive  that  he  is  best 
in  those  things  wherein  he  is  failing;  and,  to  help  that 
again,  to  seem  on  the  other  side  that  he  hath  least  opin- 
ion of  himself  in  those  things  wherein  he  is  best ;  like  as 
we  shall  see  it  commonly  in  poets  ;  that  if  they  show  their 
verses,  and  you  except  to  any,  they  will  say,  that  that  line 
cost  them  more  labor  than  any  of  the  rest ;  and  presently 
will  seem  to  disable  and  suspect  rather  some  other  line, 
which  they  know  well  enough  to  be  the  best  in  the  num- 
ber." 

"  Few  persons  who  talk  of  any  virtue  or  quality,"  says 
Pascal,  "  are  inwardly  acquainted  or  affected  with  it. 
We  are  all  full  of  duplicity,  deceit,  and  contradiction. 
We  love  to  wear  a  disguise,  even  within,  and  are  afraid 
of  being  detected  by  ourselves." 

Infirmities  and  calamities  have  been  made  to  serve  im- 
portant uses  in  the  designs  of  men.  "  It  was  necessary," 
says  a  writer  upon  Mahomet,  "  that  the  religion  he  pro- 
posed to  establish  should  have  a  divine  sanction  ;  and 
for  this  purpose  he  turned  a  calamity  with  which  he  was 
afflicted  to  his  advantage.  He  was  often  subject  to  fits 
of  epilepsy,  a  disease  which  those  whom  it  afflicts  are  de- 
sirous  to  conceal.     Mahomet  gave    out,   therefore,   that 


DISGUISES.  67 

these  fits  were  trances,  into  which  he  was  miraculously 
thrown  by  God  Almighty,  during  which  he  was  instructed 
in  his  will,  which  he  was  commanded  to  publish  to  the 
world.  By  this  strange  story,  and  by  leading  a  retired, 
abstemious,  and  austere  life,  he  easily  acquired  a  charac- 
ter for  superior  sanctity  among  his  acquaintances  and 
neighbors.  When  he  thought  himself  sufficiently  forti- 
fied by  the  numbers  and  enthusiasm  of  his  followers,  he 
boldly  declared  himself  a  prophet,  sent  by  God  into  the 
world,  not  only  to  teach  his  will,  but  to  compel  mankind 
to  obey  it." 

The  world  not  only  seems  to  be  easily  deceived,  but 
seems  to  delight  in  deception.  "  If  you  wish  to  be  pow- 
erful," said  Home  Tooke,  "  pretend  to  be  powerful."  If 
you  wish  to  be  considered  wise,  systematically  pretend  to 
be,  and  you  will  generally  be  acknowledged  to  be.  We 
all  know,  for  instance,  the  influence  of  manner,  as  some- 
times displayed  by  persons  of  great  assumed  personal 
dignity.  Every  neighborhood  is  afflicted  with  such  pre- 
tenders. "Among  those  terms,"  says  Whipple,  indig- 
nantly, "  which  have  long  ceased  to  have  any  vital  mean- 
ing, the  word  dignity  deserves  a  disgraceful  prominence. 
No  word  has  fallen  so  readily  into  the  designs  of  cant, 
imposture,  and  pretense  ;  none  has  played  so  well  the 
part  of  verbal  scarecrow,  to  frighten  children  of  all  ages 
and  both  sexes.  It  is  at  once  the  thinnest  and  most 
effective  of  all  the  coverings  under  which  duncedom 
sneaks  and  skulks.  Most  of  the  men  of  dignity,  who 
awe  or  bore  their  more  genial  brethren,  are  simply  men 
who  possess  the  art  of  passing  off  their  insensibility  for 
wisdom,  their  dullness  for  depth,  and  of  concealing  im- 
becility of  intellect  under  haughtiness  of  manner.  Their 
success  in  this  small  game  is  one  of  the  stereotyped  sa- 
tires upon  mankind.  Once  strip  from  these  pretenders 
♦heir  stolen  garments  —  once  disconnect  their  show  of 
dignity  from  their  real  meanness  —  and  they  would  stand 


68  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

shivering  and  defenseless,  —  objects  of  the  tears  of  pity, 
or  targets  for  the  arrows  of  scorn Manner  tri- 
umphs over  matter ;  and  throughout  society,  poUtics,  let- 
ters, and  science,  we  are  doomed  to  meet  a  swarm  of 
dunces  and  wind-bags,  disguised  as  gentlemen,  states- 
men, and  scholars."  When  they  open  their  mouths,  it  is 
to  expand  themselves  with  a  new  inhalation  of  emptiness, 
or  to  depreciate  or  belittle  what  they  pretend  is  insignifi- 
cant, when  it  only  exceeds  their  capacity.  They  put  up 
their  heads  and  expectorate  with  a  smirky  haughtiness, 
as  if  everything  worth  knowing  were  known  to  them, 
when  a  single  sensation  of  modesty  would  envelop  their 
moony  faces  with  blushes.  Every  one  has  seen  such  a 
character,  —  "  an  embodied  tediousness,  which  society  is 
apt  not  only  to  tolerate,  but  to  worship  ;  a  person  who 
announces  the  stale  commonplaces  of  conversation  with 
the  awful  precision  of  one  bringing  down  to  the  valleys 
of  thought  bright  truths  plucked  on  its  summits  ;  who  is 
so  profoundly  deep  and  painfully  solid,  on  the  weather, 
or  some  nothing  of  the  day ;  who  is  inexpressibly  shocked 
if  your  eternal  gratitude  does  not  repay  him  for  the  trite 
information  he  consumed  your  hour  in  imparting ;  and 
who,  if  you  insinuate  that  this  calm,  contented,  impertur- 
bable stupidity  is  preying  upon  your  patience,  instantly 
stands  upon  his  dignity,  and  puts  on  a  face."  "  A  cer- 
tain nobleman,  some  years  ago,"  says  Bulwer,  in  one  of 
his  essays,  "  was  conspicuous  for  his  success  in  the  world. 
He  had  been  employed  in  the  highest  situations,  at  home 
and  abroad,  without  one  discoverable  reason  for  his  se- 
lection, and  without  justifying  the  selection  by  one  proof 
of  administrative  ability.  Yet  at  each  appointment  the 
public  said,  '  A  great  gain  to  the  government !  Superior 
man  ! '  And  when  from  each  office  he  passed  away,  or 
rather  passed  imperceptibly  onward  toward  offices  still 
more  exalted,  the  public  said,  '  A  great  loss  to  the  gov- 
ernment !     Superior  man  ! '     He  was  the  most  silent  per 


DISGUISES.  69 

son  I  ever  met.  But  when  the  first  reasoners  of  the  age 
would  argue  some  knotty  point  in  his  presence,  he  would, 
from  time  to  time,  slightly  elevate  his  eyebrows,  gently 
shake  his  head,  or,  by  a  dexterous  smile  of  significant 
complacency,  impress  on  you  the  notion  how  easily  he 
could  set  those  babblers  right  if  he  would  but  condescend 
to  give  voice  to  the  wisdom  within  him.  I  was  very  young 
when  I  first  met  this  superior  man  ;  and  chancing  on  the 
next  day  to  call  on  the  late  Lord  Durham,  I  said,  in  the 
presumption  of  early  years,  '  I  passed  six  mortal  hours 

last  evening  in  company  with  Lord .     I  don't  think 

there  is  much  in  him,'  *  Good  heavens ! '  cried  Lord 
Durham,  *  how  did  you  find  that  out  ?  Is  it  possible  that 
he  could  have  —  talked  ? '  "  Coleridge  speaks  of  a  dig- 
nified man  he  once  saw  at  a  dinner-table.  "  He  listened 
to  me,"  says  the  poet,  "  and  said  nothing  for  a  long  time ; 
but  he  nodded  his  head,  and  I  thought  him  intelligent. 
At  length,  toward  the  end  of  the  dinner,  some  apple 
dumplings  were  placed  on  the  table,  and  my  man  had  no 
sooner  seen  them,  than  he  burst  forth  with,  —  '  Them's 
the  jockies  for  me  ! '  I  wish  Spurzheim  could  have  ex- 
amined the  fellow's  head."  The  Duke  of  Somerset  is 
described  as  one  of  these  dignified  gentlemen.  His 
second  wife  was  one  of  the  most  beautiful  women  in 
England.  She  once  suddenly  threw  her  arms  around  his 
neck,  and  gave  him  a  kiss  which  might  have  gladdened 
the  heart  of  an  emperor.  The  duke,  lifting  his  shoulders 
with  an  aristocratic  square,  slowly  said,  "  Madam,  my  first 
wife  was  a  Howard,  and  she  never  would  have  taken  such 
a  liberty  !  "  If  it  were  practicable  to  expose  the  artifice 
and  emptiness  of  such  characters,  the  exhibition  would 
be  as  amusing  as  the  scene  once  presented  on  the  stage 
of  a  theatre.  The  comedian  was  enveloped  in  a  great 
India-rubber  suit,  expanded  by  air  to  give  it  the  proper 
)roportions  to  represent  Falstaff :  when  just  in  the  middle 
of  one  of  the  in'mitable  speeches  of  that  inimitable  char 


70  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

acter,  some  wag  of  the  stock  insinuated  a  sharp-pointed 
instrument  into  the  immense  windful  garment :  immedi- 
ately the  great  proportions  of  Falstaff  began  to  diminish, 
attended  by  an  audible  hissing  noise  ;  and  before  the 
discomposed  actor,  overwhelmed  with  the  laughter  of  the 
uproarious  audience,  could  retire  from  the  stage,  he  had 
shrunk  to  an  insignificant  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds 
avoirdupois,  with  his  deceptive  covering  hanging  about 
his  gaunt  limbs  in  voluminous  folds  !  Such  persons  will 
generally  be  found  in  possession  of  good  moral  habits  — ■ 
pi  ops  they  instinctively  set  up  to  sustain  their  pretenses. 
They  know  by  intuition  that  an  affectation  of  wisdom 
and  greatness  would  be  intolerable  if  attended  by  vicious 
propensities  and  practices  ;  so  they  cultivate  with  sys- 
tematic carefulness  all  the  forms  of  morality  and  virtue. 
They  know  that  their  good  habits  will  always  insure  the 
respect  of  even  those  who  detect  and  despise  their  emp- 
tiness. But  they  are  never  heard  to  claim  anything  on 
the  score  of  superior  virtue ;  they  demand  to  be  known 
as  Solons  —  as  abridgments  of  all  that  is  profound  and 
wonderful  known  among  men.  Like  the  owl  —  that  wise 
bird,  sacred  of  old  to  Minerva  —  they  make  their  preten- 
sions respected  by  the  most  commendable  propriety. 

"  Yorick  had  an  invincible  dislike  and  opposition  in  his 
nature  to  gravity  ;  —  not  to  gravity  as  such  ;  —  for  where 
gravity  was  wanted,  he  would  be  the  most  grave  or  serious 
of  mortal  men  for  days  and  weeks  together ;  but  he  was 
an  enemy  to  the  affectation  of  it,  and  declared  open  war 
against  it,  only  as  it  appeared  a  cloak  for  ignorance,  or 
folly :  and  then,  whenever  it  fell  in  his  way.  however 
sheltered  and  protected,  he  seldom  gave  it  any  quarter. 
Sometimes,  in  his  wild  way  of  talking,  he  would  say,  that 
gravity  was  an  errant  scoundrel,  and,  he  would  add,  — ■ 
of  the  most  dangerous  kind  too,  —  because  a  sly  one ; 
and  that  he  verily  believed,  more  honest,  well-meaning 
people  were  bubbled  out  of  their  goods  and  money  by  it 


DISGUISES.  71 

in  one  twelvemonth,  than  by  pocket-picking,  and  shop- 
lifting in  seven.  In  the  naked  temper  which  a  merry 
heart  discovered,  he  would  say  there  was  no  danger,  — 
but  to  itself :  —  whereas  the  very  essence  of  gravity  was 
design,  and  consequently  deceit ;  —  't  was  a  taught  trick, 
to  gain  credit  of  the  world  for  more  sense  and  knowledge 
than  a  man  was  worth  ;  and  that,  with  all  his  pretensions, 
—  it  was  no  better,  but  often  worse,  than  what  a  Fiench 
wit  had  long  ago  defined  it,  viz.  :  A  mysterious  carriage  of 
the  body,  to  cover  the  defects  of  the  mind  :  —  which  def- 
inition of  gravity,  Yorick,  with  great  imprudence,  would 
say,  deserved  to  be  wrote  in  letters  of  gold." 

"  Men  in  general,"  says  Machiavelli,  in  his  Prince, 
*'  judge  more  from  appearances  than  from  reality.  All 
men  have  eyes,  but  few  have  the  gift  of  penetration. 
Every  one  sees  your  exterior,  but  few  can  discern  what 
you  have  in  your  heart ;  and  those  few  dare  not  oppose 
the  voice  of  the  multitude." 

A  pretension  to  devoutness  and  asceticism  was  one  of 
the  fashions  in  Moli^re's  time.  In  his  play  of  Le  Festin 
de  Pierre,  he  makes  Don  Juan  to  say :  "  The  profession 
of  hypocrite  has  marvelous  advantages.  It  is  an  act  of 
which  the  imposture  is  always  respected  ;  and  though  it 
may  be  discovered,  no  one  dares  do  anything  against  it. 
All  the  other  vices  of  man  are  liable  to  censure,  and  every 
one  has  tbe  liberty  of  boldly  attacking  them  ;  but  hypoc- 
risy is  a  privileged  vice,  which  with  its  hand  closes  every- 
body's mouth,  and  enjoys  its  repose  with  sovereign  im- 
punity." 

The  absorbing  desire  for  wealth  —  *'  that  bad  thing, 
gold,"  that  "  buys  all  things  good  "  —  like  ambition, 
"  often  puts  men  upon  doing  the  meanest  offices  :  so 
climbing  is  performed  in  the  same  posture  with  creep 
ing."  Almost  every  act  may  be  a  lie  against  the  thought 
or  motive  which  prompted  it.  The  great  aim  of  the  mere 
money-getter — to  get  and  get  forever  —  involves  him  ia 


72  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

false  pretense  and  practical  falsehood.  He  advises  to  in- 
veigle ;  he  condoles  and  sympathizes  to  ruin.  He  talks 
of  liberalty,  and  never  gives.  He  depreciates  money  and 
the  love  of  it,  at  the  same  time  glows  and  dimples  with 
the  consciousness  of  his  possessions.  He  calls  life  a 
humbug  or  muck,  and  proves  it  by  a  hypocriticaFexhibit 
of  his  gains.  He  puts  a  penny  in  the  urn  of  poverty,  and 
sees  clearly  how  he  will  get  a  shilling  out.  He  whines 
for  wretchedness,  forgetting  the  number  he  has  made 
wretched.  He  gives  to  religion,  and  plunders  her  devo- 
tees. He  hires  an  expensive  pew  near  the  pulpit,  and 
cheats  his  woodsawyer  and  washerwoman.  He  builds 
costly  churches  with  tall  steeples,  and,  writing  the  Al- 
mighty in  his  list  of  debtors,  formally  bargains  admission 
to  heaven.  "  He  falls  down  and  worships  the  god  of  this 
world,  but  will  have  neither  its  pomps,  its  vanities,  nor  its 
pleasures,  for  his  trouble.  He  begins  to  accumulate  treas 
ure  as  a  mean  to  happiness,  and  by  a  common  but  morbid 
association  he  continues  to  accumulate  it  as  an  end.  He 
lives  poor  to  die  rich,  and  is  the  mere  jailer  of  his  house, 
and  the  turnkey  of  his  wealth.  Impoverished  by  his  gold, 
he  slaves  harder  to  imprison  it  in  his  chest  than  his 
brother-slave  to  liberate  it  from  the  mine."  "  Some 
men,"  says  Chrysippus,  in  Athenaeus,  "  apply  themselves 
with  such  eagerness  to  the  pursuit  of  money,  that  it  is 
even  related,  that  a  man  once,  when  near  his  end,  swal- 
lowed a  number  of  pieces  of  gold,  and  so  died.  Another 
person  sewed  a  quantity  of  money  into  a  tunic,  and  put  it 
on,  and  then  ordered  his  servants  to  bury  him  in  that 
dress,  neither  burning  his  body,  nor  stripping  it  and  lay- 
ing it  out."  Foote,  in  endeavoring  to  express  the  micro- 
scopic niggardliness  of  a  miser  of  his  acquaintance,  ex- 
pressed a  belief  that  he  would  be  willing  to  take  the 
beam  out  of  his  own  eye  if  he  knew  he  could  sell  the  tim- 
ber. Doubtless,  one  source  of  the  miser's  insane  covet- 
ousness  and  parsimony  is  the  tormenting  fear  of  dying  a 


DISGUISES. 


73 


beggar  —  that  "fine  horror  of  poverty,"  according  to 
Lamb,  "  by  which  he  is  not  content  to  keep  want  from 
the  door,  or  at  arm's-length,  but  he  places  it,  by  heaping 
wealth  upon  wealth,  at  a  sublime  distance."  (  "  All  the 
arguments  which  are  brought  to  represent  poverty  as  no 
evil,"  impatiently  exclaimed  Dr.  Johnson,  "  show  it  to  be 
evidently  a  great  evil.  You  never  find  people  laboring  to 
convince  you  that  you  may  live  very  happily  upon  a  plen- 
tiful fortune.  So  you  hear  people  talking  how  miserable 
a  king  must  be  ;  and  yet  they  all  wish  to  be  in  his  place." 
"  One  asks,"  says  La  Bruyere,  "  if,  in  comparing  the  dif- 
ferent conditions  of  men  together,  their  sufferings  and 
advantages,  we  cannot  observe  an  equal  mixture,  and  a 
like  assortment  of  good  and  evil,  which  settles  them  on  an 
equality,  or  at  least  makes  one  as  desirable  as  the  other  : 
the  rich  and  powerful  man,  who  wants  nothing,  may  put 
the  question,  but  a  poor  man  must  answer  it")  The 
hoarding  habits  of  the  miser  remind  one  of  a  device  of 
American  boatmen,  at  an  early  day,  before  the  steamboat 
was  invented,  and  when  the  forest  was  infested  with  sav- 
ages and  robbers.  Receiving  specie  at  New  Orleans  for 
their  produce,  they  deposited  it  in  a  wet  buckskin  belt,  of 
sufficient  length  to  surround  the  body,  which,  as  it  dried, 
contracted  and  shrunk  round  the  coin,  till  no  amount  of 
shaking  would  cause  it  to  jingle.  So  may  the  heart  and 
soul  of  the  avaricious  man  shrink  round  his  little  heap  of 
gold,  until  all  healthy  circulation  ceases,  and  his  heart 
never  jingles  with  a  genuine,  generous,  manly  impulse. 

Disraeli,  in  his  Curiosities,  gives  an  interesting  philo- 
sophical sketch  of  Audley,  —  the  great  Audley,  as  he  was 
called  in  his  time,  —  who  concentrated  all  the  powers  of 
a  vigorous  intellect  in  the  accumulation  of  wealth.  He 
lived  in  England  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  cent- 
ury, through  the  reigns  of  James  L  and  Charles  I.,  and, 
beginning  life  with  almost  nothing,  died  worth  four  hun- 
dred thousand  pounds  sterling.     He  "lived  to  view  hia 


74  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

mortgages,  his  statutes,  and  his  judgments  so  numerous, 
that  it  was  observed,  his  papers  would  have  made  a  good 
map  of  England.  This  philosophical  usurer  never  pressed 
hard  for  his  debts  ;  like  the  fowler,  he  never  shook  his 
nets  lest  he  might  startle,  satisfied  to  have  them,  without 
appearing  to  hold  them.  With  great  fondness  he  com- 
pared his  '  bonds  to  infants,  which  battle  best  by  sleep- 
ing.' To  battle  is  to  be  nourished,  a  term  still  retained 
at  the  University  of  Oxford.  His  familiar  companions 
were  all  subordinate  actors  in  the  great  piece  he  was  per- 
forming ;  he  too  had  his  part  in  the  scene.  When  not 
taken  by  surprise,  on  his  table  usually  laid  open  a  great 
Bible,  with  Bishop  Andrews'  folio  Sermons,  which  often 
gave  him  an  opportunity  of  railing  at  the  covetousness  of 
the  clergy  !  declaring  their  religion  was  a  *  mere  preach,' 
and  that  '  the  time  would  never  be  well  till  we  had  Queen 
Elizabeth's  Protestants  again  in  fashion.'  He  was  aware 
of  all  the  evils  arising  out  of  a  population  beyond  the 
means  of  subsistence,  and  dreaded  an  inundation  of  man, 
spreading  like  the  spawn  of  a  cod.  Hence  he  considered 
marriage,  with  a  modern  political  economist,  as  very  dan- 
gerous ;  bitterly  censuring  the  clergy,  whose  children,  he 
said,  never  thrived,  and  whose  widows  were  left  desti- 
tute. An  apostolic  life,  according  to  Audley,  required 
only  books,  meat,  and  drink,  to  be  had  for  fifty  pounds  a 
year  !  Celibacy,  voluntary  poverty,  and  all  the  mortifica- 
tions of  a  primitive  Christian,  were  the  virtues  practiced 
by  this  Puritan  among  his  moneybags.  Audley's  was 
that  worldly  wisdom  which  derives  all  its  strength  from 
the  weaknesses  of  mankind.  Everything  was  to  be  ob- 
tained by  stratagem,  and  it  was  his  maxim,  that  to  grasp 
our  object  the  faster,  we  must  go  a  little  round  about  it. 
His  life  is  said  to  have  been  one  of  intricacies  and  myste- 
ries, using  indirect  means  in  all  things ;  but  if  he  walked 
in  a  labyrinth,  it  was  to  bewilder  others;  for  the  clew  was 
still  in  his  own  hand  ;  all  he  sought  was  that  his  designs 


-  DISGUISES.  75 

should  not  be  discovered  in  his  actions.  His  word,  we 
are  told,  was  his  bond  ;  his  hour  was  punctual ;  and  his 
opinions  were  compressed  and  weighty ;  but  if  he  was  true 
to  his  bond-word,  it  was  only  a  part  of  the  system  to  give 
facility  to  the  carrying  on  of  his  trade,  for  he  was  not 
strict  to  his  honor  ;  the  pride  of  victory,  as  well  as  the 
passion  for  acquisition,  combined  in  the  character  of 
Audley,  as  in  more  tremendous  conquerors.  In  the 
course  of  time  he  purchased  a  position  in  the  '  court  of 
wards,'  which  enabled  him  to  plunder  the  estates  of  de- 
ceased persons  and  minors.  When  asked  the  value  of 
this  new  office,  he  replied  that  '  it  might  be  worth  some 
thousands  of  pounds  to  him  who  after  his  death  would  go 
instantly  to  heaven  ;  twice  as  much  to  him  who  would  go 
to  purgatory,  and  nobody  knows  what  to  him  who  would 
adventure  to  go  to  hell.'  "  What  he  thought  of  a  venture 
to  the  latter  place,  his  four  hundred  thousand  pounds 
must  speak. 

Many  and  interesting  as  are  the  disguises  of  avarice, 
it  is  only  in  rank  and  ancestry  that  you  find  perfect  com- 
placency and  assurance.  *'  We  have  all  heard,"  says 
Thackeray,  "of  the  dying  French  duchess  who  viewed  her 
coming  dissolution  and  subsequent  fate  so  easily,  because 
she  said  she  was  sure  that  Heaven  must  deal  politely  with 
a  person  of  her  quality."  You  recollect  that  other  duch- 
ess, in  Saint-Simon,  who,  on  the  death  of  a  sinner  of 
illustrious  race,  said,  "  They  may  say  what  they  like,  but 
no  one  shall  persuade  me  that  God  does  not  think  of  it 
twice  before  he  damns  a  man  of  his  birth."  An  old  lady 
once  said  to  De  Tocqueville,  "  I  have  been  reading  with 
great  satisfaction  the  genealogies  which  prove  that  Jesus 
Christ  descended  from  David.  It  shows  that  our  Lord 
was  a  gentleman."  "  We  are  somewhat  ashamed  in  gen- 
eral "  said  Senior  to  De  Tocqueville,  "  of  Jewish  blood ; 
yet  ihe  Levis  boast  of  their  descent  from  the  Hebrew 
Levi."    "  They  are  proud  of  it,"  answered  De  Tocqueville ; 


^6  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

"  because  they  make  themselves  out  to  be  cousins  of  the 
blessed  Virgin.  They  have  a  picture  in  which  a  Duke  de 
Levi  stands  bareheaded  before  the  Virgin.  '  Pray  put 
your  hat  on,  cousin,'  she  says.  '  I  had  rather  keep  it  off,' 
he  answered." 

"  Do  we  not  every"  day  meet  with  people,"  says  Xavier 
de  Maistre,  "  who  fancy  they  are  ill  because  they  are  un- 
shaven, or  because  some  one  has  thought  they  have  looked 
poorly,  and  told  them  so  ?  Dress  has  such  influence 
upon  men's  minds  that  there  are  valetudinarians  who  think 
themselves. in  better  health  than  usual  when  they  have  on 
a  new  coat  and  well  powdered  wig.  They  deceive  the 
public  and  themselves  by  their  nicety  about  dress,  until 
one  finds  some  fine  morning  they  have  died  in  full  fig, 
and  their  death  startles  everybody." 

I>ord  Eldon  was  fond  of  relating  amusing  anecdotes  of 
the  famous  state  trials  of  Hardy,  Home  Tooke,  and  Thel- 
wall,  which  occurred  while  he  was  attorney  general. 
"  Every  evening,"  he  said,  "  upon  my  leavmg  the  court, 
a  signal  was  given  that  I  was  coming  out,  for  a  general 
hissing  and  hooting  of  the  attorney  general.  This  went 
through  the  street  in  which  the  court  sat,  from  one  end  of 
it  to  the  other,  and  was  continued  all  the  way  down  to 
Ludgate  Hill  and  by  Fleet  Market.  One  evening,  at  the 
rising  of  the  court,  I  was  preparing  to  retire,  when  Mr. 
Garrow  said,  '  Do  not,  Mr.  Attorney,  pass  that  tall  man 
at  the  end  of  the  table.'  *  And  why  not  ? '  said  Mr.  Law, 
who  stood  next.  '  He  has  been  here,'  answered  Mr. 
Garrow,  '  during  the  whole  trial,  with  his  eyes  constantly 
fixed  on  the  attorney  general.'  *  I  will  pass  him,'  said 
Mr.  Law.  'And  so  will  I,'  was  my  rejoinder.  As  we 
passed,  the  man  drew  back.  When  I  entered  my  car- 
riage, the  mob  rushed  forward,  crying,  'That's  he,  drag 
him  out ! '  Mr.  Erskine,  from  whose  carriage  the  mob 
had  taken  off  the  horses  to  draw  him  home  in  triumph, 
stopped  the  people,  saying,  '  I  will    not  go  without  the 


DISGUISES.  'j'j 

attorney  general ! '  I  instantly  addressed  them  :  '  So  you 
imagine,  that  if  you  kill  me,  you  will  be  without  an  attor- 
ney general !  Before  ten  o'clock  to-morrow  there  will  be 
a  new  attorney  general,  by  no  means  so  favorably  dis- 
posed to  you  as  I  am.'  I  heard  a  friend  in  the  crowd  ex- 
claim, *  Let  him  alone  !  let  him  alone  ! '  They  separated, 
and  I  proceeded.  When  I  reached  my  home  in  Gower 
Street,  I  saw,  close  to  my  door,  the  tall  man  who  stood 
near  me  in  court.  I  had  no  alternative  ;  I  instantly  went 
up  to  him  :  *  What  do  you  want  ? '  I  said.  *  Do  not  be 
alarmed,'  he  answered  ;  '  I  have  attended  in  court  during 
the  whole  of  the  trial  —  I  know  my  own  strength,  and  am 
resolved  to  stand  by  you.  You  once  did  an  act  of  great 
kindness  to  my  father.  Thank  God,  you  are  safe  at  home. 
May  He  bless  and  protect  you  ! '  He  instantly  disap- 
peared." 

Rulhiere  told  De  Tocqueville  a  verj'  different  story, 
characteristic  of  a  Russian.  He  was  a  man  of  high  rank, 
who  had  been  sent  to  the  French  head-quarters  on  a  mis- 
sion, and  lived  for  some  time  on  intimate  terms  with  the 
staff,  particularly  with  Rulhiere.  At  the  battle  of  Eylau 
Rulhibre  was  taken  prisoner.  He  caught  the  eye  of  his 
Russian  friend,  who  came  to  offer  his  services.  "  You 
can  do  me,"  said  Rulhiere,  "  an  important  service.  One 
of  your  Cossacks  yonder  has  just  seized  my  horse  and 
cloak.  I  am  dying  of  fatigue  and  cold.  If  you  can  get 
them  for  me,  you  may  save  my  life."  The  Russian  went 
to  the  Cossack,  talked  to  him  rather  sharply,  probably  on 
the  wickedness  of  robbing  a  prisoner ;  got  possession  of 
the  horse  and  cloak  ;  put  on  the  one,  and  mounted  the 
other,  and  Rulhibre  never  saw  him  again. 

Incledon,  the  singer,  related  to  Crabb  Robinson,  in  a 
stage-coach,  anecdotes  of  Garrick  and  Foote,  which  show 
how  completely  they  both  lost  themselves  in  their  acting. 
Garrick  had  a  brother  living  in  the  country,  who  was  an 
idolatrous  admirer  of   his  genius.     A  rich    neighbor,   a 


yS  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

grocer,  being  about  to  visit  London,  tliis  brother  insisted 
on  his  taking  a  letter  of  introduction  to  the  actor.  Not 
being  able  to  make  up  his  mind  to  visit  the  great  man  the 
first  day,  the  grocer  went  to  the  play  in  the  evening,  and 
saw  Garrick  in  Abel  Drugger.  On  his  return  to  the  coun- 
try, the  brother  eagerly  inquired  respecting  the  visit  he 
had  been  so  anxious  to  bring  about.  "Why,  Mr.  Garrick," 
said  the  good  man,  "I  am  sorry  to  hurt  your  feelings, 
but  there  's  your  letter.  I  did  not  choose  to  deliver  it." 
"  Not  deliver  it !  "  exclaimed  the  other,  in  astonishment. 
"  I  happened  to  see  him  when  he  did  not  know  me,  and  I 
saw  that  he  was  such  a  dirty,  low-lived  fellow,  that  I  did 
not  like  to  have  anything  to  do  with  him."  Foote  went 
to  Ireland,  and  took  off  a  celebrated  Dublin  printer.  The 
printer  stood  the  jest  for  some  time,  but  found  at  last 
that  Foote's  imitations  became  so  popular,  and  drew  such 
attention  to  himself,  that  he  could  not  walk  the  streets 
without  being  pointed  at.  He  bethought  himself  of  a 
remedy.  Collecting  a  number  of  boys,  he  gave  them  a 
hearty  meal,  and  a  shilling  each  for  a  place  in  the  gallery, 
and  promised  them  another  meal  on  the  morrow  if  they 
would  hiss  off  the  scoundrel  who  turned  him  into  ridicule. 
The  injured  man  learned  from  his  friends  that  Foote  was 
received  that  night  better  than  ever.  Nevertheless,  in 
the  morning,  the  ragged  troop  of  boys  appeared  to  de- 
mand their  recompense,  and  when  the  printer  reproached 
them  for  their  treachery,  their  spokesman  said  :  "  Plase 
yer  honor,  we  did  all  we  could,  for  the  actor-man  had 
heard  of  us,  and  did  not  come  at  all  at  all.  And  so  we 
had  nobody  to  hiss.  But  when  we  saw  yer  honor's  own 
dear  self  come  on,  we  did  clap,  indeed  we  did,  and 
showed  you  all  the  respect  and  honor  in  our  power.  And 
so  yer  honor  won't  forget  us  because  yer  honor's  enemy 
ivas  afraid  to  come,  and  left  yer  honor  to  yer  own  dear 
self." 

Immortal  sermons  are  disguised  in  legends ;  the  most 


DISGUISES.  79 

familiar  objects  are  perpetually  preaching  to  us.  Ages 
ago,  the  Germans  have  it,  there  went,  one  Sunday  morn- 
ing, an  old  man  into  the  forest  to  cut  wood.  When  he 
had  made  a  bundle,  he  slung  it  on  his  staff,  cast  it  over 
his  shoulder,  and  started  for  home.  On  his  way  he  met 
a  minister,  all  in  his  bands  and  robes,  who  asked  him, 
*'  Don't  you  know,  my  friend,  that  it  is  Sunday  on  earth, 
when  all  must  rest  from  their  labors  ? "  "  Sunday  on 
earth,  Monday  in  heaven,  it  is  all  one  to  me,"  laughed 
the  woodman.  "  Then  bear  your  burden  forever,"  said 
the  priest ;  "  and  as  you  value  not  Sunday  on  earth,  you 
shall  have  Monday  in  heaven  till  the  great  day."  There- 
upon the  speaker  vanished,  and  the  man  was  caught  up, 
with  cane  and  fagots,  into  the  moon,  where  you  can  see 
him  any  clear  night.  The  Norwegians  think  they  see 
both  a  man  and  woman  ;  and  the  legend  is,  that  the 
former  threw  branches  at  people  going  to  church,  and  the 
latter  made  butter  on  Sunday.  In  the  clear,  cold  nights 
of  winter  they  will  point  out  the  man  carr}dng  his  bundle 
of  thorns,  and  the  woman  her  butter-tub.  In  Norway,  the 
red-crested,  black  woodpecker  is  known  under  the  name 
of  Gertrud's  bird.  Its  origin,  according  to  Thorpe,  is  as 
follows  :  When  our  Lord,  accompanied  by  St.  Peter,  was 
wandering  on  earth,  they  came  to  a  woman  who  was  occu- 
pied in  baking  :  her  name  was  Gertrud,  and  on  her  head 
she  wore  a  red  hood.  Weary  and  hungry  from  their  long 
journeying,  our  Lord  begged  for  a  cake.  She  took  a  lit- 
tle dough  and  set  it  on  to  bake,  and  it  grew  so  large  that 
it  filled  the  whole  pan.  Thinking  it  too  much  for  alms, 
she  took  a  smaller  quantity  of  dough,  and  again  began  to 
bake,  but  this  cake  also  swelled  up  to  the  same  size  as 
the  first;  she  then  took  still  less  dough,  and  when  the 
cake  had  become  as  large  as  the  preceding  ones,  Gertrud 
said  :  "  You  must  go  without  alms ;  for  all  my  bakings  are 
too  large  for  you."  Then  was  our  Lord  wroth,  and  said, 
"Because  thou  gavest  me  nothing,  thou  shalt  for  punish 


80  LIBRARY    NOTES. 

ment  become  a  little  bird,  shalt  seek  thy  dry  food  between 
the  wood  and  the  bark,  and  drink  only  when  it  rains." 
Hardly  were  these  words  spoken  when  the  woman  was 
transformed  to  the  Gertrud  bird,  and  flew  away  through 
the  kitchen  chimney;  and  at  this  day  she  is  seen  with  a 
red  hood  and  black  body,  because  she  was  blackened  by 
the  soot  of  the  chimney.  She  constantly  pecks  the  bark 
of  trees  for  sustenance,  and  whistles  against  rain  ;  for  she 
always  thirsts  and  hopes  to  drink.  According  to  the 
legend,  the  Wandering  Jew  is  a  poor  shoemaker  of  Jeru- 
salem, When  Christ,  bearing  his  cross,  passed  before 
his  house,  and  asked  his  leave  to  repose  for  a  moment  on 
the  stone  bench  at  his  door,  the  Jew  replied  harshly,  "  Go 
on — go  on!"  and  refused  him.  "It  is  thou  who  shalt 
go  on  till  the  end  of  time ! "  was  Christ's  reply,  in  a  sad 
but  severe  tone. 

Lord  Cockburn,  in  his  Memorials,  relates  an  anecdote 
of  Dr.  Henr}^,  the  historian,  as  told  to  him  by  Sir  Harry 
Moncreiff,  who  was  the  doctor's  favorite  younger  friend. 
The  doctor  was  living  at  a  place  of  his  own  in  his  native 
county  of  Stirling.  He  was  about  seventy-two,  and  had 
been  for  some  time  very  feeble.  He  wrote  to  Sir'  Harry 
that  he  was  dying,  and  thus  invited  him  for  the  last  time 
• —  "  Come  out  here  directly.  I  have  got  something  to 
do  this  week,  I  have  got  to  die."  Sir  Harry  went ;  and 
found  his  friend  plainly  sinking,  but  resigned  and  cheer- 
ful. He  had  no  children,  and  there  was  nobody  with 
him  except  his  wife.  She  and  Sir  Harry  remained  alone 
with  him  for  about  three  days,  being  his  last  three  ;  dur- 
ing a  great  part  of  which  the  reverend  historian  sat  in  his 
easy  chair,  and  conversed,  and  listened  to  reading,  and 
dozed.  While  engaged  in  this  way,  the  hoofs  of  a  horse 
were  heard  clattering  in  the  court  below.  Mrs.  Henry 
looked  out  and  exclaimed  that  it  was  *'that  wearisome 
body,"  naming  a  neighboring  minister,  who  was  famous 
for  never  leaving  a  house  after  he  had  once  got  into  it 


DISGUISES.  8l 

"  Keep  him  out,"  cried  the  doctor,  "  don't  let  the  crater 
in  here."  But  before  they  could  secure  his  exclusion,  the 
crater's  steps  were  heard  on  the  stair,  and  he  was  at  the 
door.  The  doctor  instantly  winked  significantly,  and 
signed  to  them  to  sit  down  and  be  quiet,  and  he  would 
pretend  to  be  sleeping.  The  hint  was  taken  ;  and  when 
the  intruder  entered  he  found  the  patient  asleep  in  his 
cushioned  chair.  Sir  Harry  and  Mrs.  Henry  put  their 
fingers  to  their  lips,  and  pointing  to  the  supposed  slum- 
berer  as  one  not  to  be  disturbed,  shook  their  heads.  The 
man  sat  down  near  the  door,  like  one  inclined  to  wait  till 
the  nap  was  over.  Once  or  twice  he  tried  to  speak  ;  but 
was  instantly  repressed  by  another  finger  on  the  lip,  and 
another  shake  of  the  head.  So  he  sat  on,  all  in  perfect 
silence  for  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour ;  during  which  Sir 
Harry  occasionally  detected  the  dying  man  peeping  cau- 
tiously through  the  fringes  of  his  eyelids,  to  see  how  his 
visitor  was  coming  on.  At  last  Sir  Harry  tired,  and  he 
and  Mrs.  Henry,  pointing  to  the  poor  doctor,  fairly 
waved  the  visitor  out  of  the  room ;  on  which  the  doctor 
opened  his  eyes  wide,  and  had  a  tolerably  hearty  laugh ; 
which  was  renewed  when  the  sound  of  the  horse's  feet 
made  them  certain  that  their  friend  was  actually  off  the 
premises.     Dr.  Henry  died  that  night. 

Douglas  Jerrold  speaks  of  a  London  tradesman  of  great 
practical  benevolence.  It  was  the  happiness  of  his  tem- 
perament to  recommend  to  the  palates  of  babes  and  suck- 
lings the  homeliest,  nay,  the  most  disagreeable  shapes,  by 
the  lusciousness  of  their  material.  The  man  made  sem- 
blances of  all  things  in  sugar. 

Did  you  ever  read  that  remarkable  paper  of  Lamb's, 
the  Reminiscences  of  Juke  Judkins,  Esq.,  of  Birming- 
ham ?  It  is  a  nice,  microscopic,  philosophic  study  and 
analysis  of  meanness,  —  as  common,  we  dare  say,  in  this 
world,  as  avarice,  —  and  will  make  us  wonder  that  or- 
dinary gifts  and  traits  can  be  so  perverted  and  belittled 
6 


82  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

by  debasing  uses.  All  that  is  good  of  humanity  was 
once  united  with  Divinity,  and  made  the  best  character 
that  ever  existed  on  earth.  Humiliating  it  would  be,  if 
not  impious,  to  imagine  how  much  worse  might  be  the 
devil  if  he  would  adopt  the  bestial  qualities  and  worse 
than  Satanic  traits  that  men  are  constantly  exposing  and 
cultivating  in  their  relations  with  one  another.  "  I  was 
always,"  says  Juke,  "my  father's  favorite.  He  took  a 
delight,  to  the  very  last,  in  recounting  the  little  sagacious 
tricks  and  innocent  artifices  of  my  childhood.  One  man- 
ifestation thereof  I  never  heard  him  repeat  without  tears 
of  joy  trickling  down  his  cheeks.  It  seems  that  when  I 
quitted  the  parental  roof  (August  27,  1788),  being  then 
six  years  and  not  quite  a  month  old,  to  proceed  to  the 
Free  School  at  Warwick,  where  my  father  was  a  sort  of 
trustee,  my  mother  —  as  mothers  are  usually  provident 
on  these  occasions  —  had  stuffed  the  pocket  of  the  coach, 
which  was  to  convey  me  and  six  more  children  of  my  own 
growth  that  were  going  to  be  entered  along  with  me  at 
the  same  seminary,  with  a  prodigious  quantity  of  ginger- 
bread, which  I  remember  my  father  said  was  more  than 
was  needed ;  and  so  indeed  it  was  ;  for,  if  I  had  been  to 
eat  it  all  myself,  it  would  have  got  stale  and  mouldy  be- 
fore it  had  been  half  spent.  The  consideration  whereof 
set  me  upon  my  contrivances  how  I  might  secure  to  my- 
self as  much  of  the  gingerbread  as  would  keep  good  for 
the  next  two  or  three  days,  and  yet  none  of  the  rest  in 
manner  be  wasted.  I  had  a  little  pair  of  pocket  com- 
passes, which  I  usually  carried  about  me  for  the  purpose 
of  making  draughts  and  measurements,  at  which  I  was 
always  very  ingenious,  of  the  various  engines  and  me- 
chanical inventions  in  which  such  a  town  as  Birmingham 
abounded.  By  the  means  of  these,  and  a  small  penknife 
which  my  father  had  given  me,  I  cut  out  the  one  half  of 
the  cake,  calculating  that  the  remainder  would  reasonably 
serve  my  turn  ;  and  subdividing  it  into  many  little  slices 


DISGUISES.  83 

which  were  curious  to  see  for  the  neatness  and  niceness 
of  their  proportion,  I  sold  it  out  in  so  many  pennyworths 
to  my  young  companions  as  served  us  all  the  way  to  War- 
wick, which  is  a  distance  of  some  twenty  miles  .from  this 
town  ;  and  very  merry,  I  assure  you,  we  made  ourselves 
with  it,  feasting  all  the  way.  By  this  honest  stratagem, 
I  put  double  the  prime  cost  of  the  gingerbread  into  my 
purse,  and  secured  as  much  as  I  thought  would  keep 
good  and  moist  for  my  next  two  or  three  days'  eating. 
When  I  told  this  to  my  parents  on  their  first  visit  to  me 
at  Warwick,  my  father  (good  man)  patted  me  on  the 
cheek,  and  stroked  my  head,  and  seemed  as  if  he  could 
never  make  enough  of  me ;  but  my  mother  unaccounta- 
bly burst  into  tears,  and  said  '  it  was  a  very  niggardly 
action,'  or  some  such  expression,  and  that  *  she  would 
rather  it  would  please  God  to  take  me  '  —  meaning,  God 
help  me,  that  I  should  die  —  '  than  that  she  should  live 
to  see  me  grow  up  a  mean  man ; '  which  shows  the  differ- 
ence of  parent  from  parent,  and  how  some  mothers  are 
more  harsh  and  intolerant  to  their  children  than  some 
fathers ;  when  we  might  expect  the  contrary.  My  father, 
however,  loaded  me  with  presents  from  that  time,  which 
made  me  the  envy  of  my  school-fellows.  As  I  felt  this 
growing  disposition  in  them,  I  naturally  sought  to  avert 
"t  by  all  the  means  in  my  power ;  and  from  that  time  I 
used  to  eat  my  little  packages  of  fruit,  and  other  nice 
things,  in  a  corner,  so  privately  that  I  was  never  found 
out.  Once,  I  remember,  I  had  a  huge  apple  sent  me,  01 
that  sort  which  they  call  cats'-heads.  I  concealed  this  all 
day  under  my  pillow ;  and  at  night,  but  not  before  I  had 
ascertained  that  my  bed-fellow  was  sound  asleep,  —  which 
I  did  by  pinching  him  rather  smartly  two  or  three  times, 
which  he  seemed  to  perceive  no  more  than  a  dead  per- 
son, though  once  or  twice  he  made  a  motion  as  he  would 
turn,  which  frightened  me,  —  I  say,  when  I  had  made  all 
*ure,  I  fell  to  work  upon  my  apple ;  and,  though  it  was  as 


84  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

big  as  an  ordinaiy  man's  two  fists,  I  made  shift  to  get 
through  before  it  was  time  to  get  up.  And  a  more  de- 
licious feast  I  never  made ;  thinking  all  night  what  a 
good  parent  I  had  (I  mean  my  father),  to  send  me  so 
many  nice  things,  when  the  poor  lad  that  lay  by  me  had 
no  parent  or  friend  in  the  world  to  send  him  anything 
nice  ;  and,  thinking  of  his  desolate  condition,  I  munched 
and  munched  as  silently  as  I  could,  that  I  might  not  set 
him  a  longing  if  he  overheard  me.  And  yet,  for  all  this 
considerateness  and  attention  to  other  people's  feelings, 
I  was  never  much  a  favorite  with  my  school-fellows ; 
which  I  have  often  wondered  at,  seeing  that  I  never  de- 
frauded any  one  of  them  of  the  value  of  a  half-penny,  or 
told  stories  of  them  to  their  master,  as  some  little  lying 
boys  would  do,  but  was  ready  to  do  any  of  them  all  the 
services  in  my  power  that  were  consistent  with  my  own 
well-doing.  I  think  nobody  can  be  expected  to  go  further 
than  that."  Juke,  in  the  course  of  time,  was  engaged  to 
be  married  to  a  maiden  named  Cleora.  Hear  him  relate 
the  circumstance  that  broke  off  the  engagement :  "  I  was 
never,"  he  says,  "  much  given  to  theatrical  entertain- 
ments ;  that  is,  at  no  turn  of  my  life  was  I  ever  what 
they  call  a  regular  play-goer ;  but  on  some  occasion  of 
a  benefit-night,  which  was  expected  to  be  very  productive, 
and  indeed  turned  out  so,  Cleora  expressing  a  desire  to 
be  present,  I  could  do  no  less  than  offer,  as  I  did  very 
willingly,  to  squire  her  and  her  mother  to  the  pit.  At 
that  time,  it  was  not  customary  in  our  town  for  trades- 
folk, except  some  of  the  very  topping  ones,  to  sit,  as  they 
now  do,  in  the  boxes.  At  the  time  appointed,  I  waited 
upon  the  ladies,  who  had  brought  with  them  a  young  man, 
a  distant  relation,  whom  it  seems  they  had  invited  to  be 
of  the  party.  This  a  little  disconcerted  me,  as  I  had 
about  me  barely  silver  enough  to  pay  for  our  three  selves 
at  the  door,  and  did  not  at  first  know  that  their  relation 
had  proposed  paying  for  himself.     However,  to  do  the 


DISGUISES.  85 

young  man  justice,  he  not  only  paid  for  himself  but  for 
the  old  lady  besides ;  leaving  me  only  to  pay  for  two,  as 
it  were.  In  our  passage  to  the  theatre,  the  notice  of 
Cleora  was  attracted  to  some  orange  wenches  that  stood 
about  the  doors  vending  their  commodities.  She  was 
leaning  on  my  arm  ;  and  I  could  feel  her  every  now  and 
then  giving  me  a  nudge,  as  it  is  called,  which  I  afterward 
discovered  were  hints  that  I  should  buy  some  orarges. 
It  seems  it  is  a  custom  at  Birmingham,  and  perhaps  in 
other  places,  when  a  gentleman  treats  ladies  to  the  play, 
—  especially  when  a  full  night  is  expected,  and  that  the 
house  will  be  inconveniently  warm,  —  to  provide  them 
with  this  kind  of  fruit,  oranges  being  esteemed  for  their 
cooling  property.  But  how  could  I  guess  at  that,  never 
having  treated  ladies  to  a  play  before,  and  being,  as  I 
said,  quite  a  novice  in  these  kind  of  entertainments } 
At  last,  she  spoke  plain  out,  and  begged  that  I  would 
buy  some  of  *  those  oranges,'  pointing  to  a  particular  bar- 
row. But,  when  I  came  to  examine  the  fruit,  I  did  not 
think  the  quality  of  it  was  answerable  to  the  price.  In 
this  way,  I  handled  several  baskets  of  them  ;  but  some- 
thing in  them  all  displeased  me.  Some  had  thin  rinds, 
and  some  were  plainly  over-ripe,  which  is  as  great  a  fault 
as  not  being  ripe  enough  ;  and  I  could  not  (what  they 
call)  make  a  bargain.  While  I  stood  haggling  with  the 
women  secretly  determining  to  put  off  my  purchase  till  I 
should  get  within  the  theatre,  where  I  expected  we  should 
have  better  choice,  the  young  man,  the  cousin  (who,  it 
seems,  had  left  us  without  my  missing  him),  came  running 
to  us  with  his  pockets  stuffed  out  with  oranges,  inside  and 
out,  as  they  say.  It  seems,  not  liking  the  look  of  the 
barrow-fruit  any  more  than  myself,  he  had  slipped  away 
to  an  eminent  fruiterer's,  about  three  doors  distant,  which 
I  never  had  the  sense  to  think  of,  and  had  laid  cmt  a 
matter  of  two  shillings  in  some  of  the  best  St.  Michael's, 
♦  think,  I  ever  tasted.     What  a  little  hinge,  as  I  said  be- 


86  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

fore,  the  most  important  affairs  in  life  may  turn  upon ! 
The  mere  inadvertence  to  the  fact  that  there  was  an  em- 
inent fruiterer's  within  three  doors  of  us,  though  we  had 
just  passed  it  without  the  thought  once  occurring  to  me, 
which  he  had  taken  advantage  of,  lost  me  the  affection 
of  my  Cleora,     From  that  time  she  visibly  cooled  toward 
me,  and  her  partiality  was  as  visibly  transferred  to  this 
cousin.     I  was  long  unable  to  account  for  this  change  in 
her  behavior ;  when  one  day,  accidentally  discoursing  of 
oranges  to  my  mother,  alone,  she  let  drop  a  sort  of  re- 
proach to  me,  as  if  I  had  offended  Cleora  by  my  near- 
ness, as    she   called  it,  that  evening.     Even  now,  when 
Cleora  has  been  wedded  some  years  to  that  same  officious 
relation,  as  I  may  call  him,  I  can  hardly  be  persuaded 
that  such  a  trifle  could  have  been  the  motive  to  her  in- 
constancy ;  for  could  she  suppose  that  I  would  sacrifice 
my  dearest  hopes  in  her  to  the  paltry  sum  of  two  shillings, 
when  I  was  going  to  treat  her  to  the  play,  and  her  mother 
too  (an  expense  of  more  than  four  times  that  amount),  if 
the  young  man  had  not  interfered  to  pay  for  the  latter,  as 
I  mentioned  ?     But  the  caprices  of  the  sex  are  past  find- 
ing  out;   and   I  begin  to   think  my  mother  was  in  the 
right ;  for  doubtless  women  know  women  better  than  we 
can  pretend  to  know  them." 

Juke  would  have  made  a  good  tradesman  under  the 
rules  laid  down  by  De  Foe  :  "  A  tradesman  behind  his 
counter  must  have  no  flesh  and  blood  about  him,  no  pas- 
sions, no  resentment ;  he  must  never  be  angry,  no,  not 
so  much  as  seem  to  be  so,  if  a  customer  tumbles  him  five 
hundred  pounds'  worth  of  goods,  and  scarce  bids  money 
for  anything ;  nay,  though  they  really  come  to  his  shop 
with  no  intent  to  buy,  as  many  do,  only  to  see  what  is  to 
be  sold,  and  though  he  knows  they  cannot  be  better 
pleased  than  they  are  at  some  other  shop  where  they  in- 
tend to  buy,  'tis  all  one;  the  tradesman  must  take  it 
he  must  place  it  to  the  account  of  his  calling,  that  't  is 


DISGUISES.  87 

his  business  to  be  ill-used  and  resent  nothing.  I  could 
give  you  many  examples,  how  and  in  what  manner  a 
shopkeeper  is  to  behave  himself  in  the  way  of  business  ; 
what  impertinences,  what  taunts,  flouts,  and  ridiculous 
things  he  must  bear  in  his  trade  ;  and  must  not  show 
the  least  return,  or  the  least  signal  of  disgust ;  he  must 
have  no  passions,  no  fire  in  his  temper ;  he  must  be  all 
soft  and  smooth  ;  nay,  if  his  real  temper  be  naturally 
fiery  and  hot,  he  must  show  none  of  it  in  his  shop  ;  he 
must  be  a  perfect,  complete  hypocrite,  if  he  would  be  a 
complete  tradesman.  It  is  true,  natural  tempers  are  not 
to  be  always  counterfeited  :  the  man  cannot  easily  be  a 
lamb  in  his  shop  and  a  lion  in  himself;  but,  let  it  be 
easy  or  hard,  it  must  be  done,  and  is  done.  There  are 
men  who  have  by  custom  and  usage  brought  themselves 
to  it,  that  nothing  could  be  meeker  and  milder  than  they 
when  behind  the  counter,  and  yet  nothing  be  more  furi- 
ous and  raging  in  every  other  part  of  life  ;  nay,  the  prov- 
ocations they  have  met  with  in  their  shops  have  so  irri- 
tated their  rage,  that  they  would  go  up-stairs  from  their 
shop,  and  fall  into  frenzies,  and  a  kind  of  madness,  and 
beat  their  heads  against  the  wall,  and  perhaps  mischief 
hemselves,  if  not  prevented,  till  the  violence  of  it  had 
gotten  vent ;  and  the  passions  abate  and  cool.  I  heard 
once  of  a  shopkeeper  that  behaved  himself  thus  to  such 
an  extreme  that,  when  he  was  provoked  by  the  imperti- 
nence of  the  customers  beyond  what  his  temper  could 
bear,  he  would  go  up-stairs  and  beat  his  wife,  kick  his 
children  about  like  dogs,  and  be  as  furious  for  two  or 
three  minutes  as  a  man  chained  down  in  Bedlam  ;  and 
again,  when  that  heat  was  over,  would  sit  down  and  cry 
faster  than  the  children  he  had  abused  ;  and,  after  the 
fit,  he  would  go  down  into  the  shop  again,  and  be  as 
humble,  as  courteous,  and  as  calm,  as  any  man  whatever; 
so  absolute  a  government  of  his  passions  had  he  in  the 
shop,  and  so  little  out  of  it :  in  the  shop,  a  soulless  ani- 


S8  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

mal  that  would  resent  nothing  ;  and  in  the  family,  a  mad- 
man :  in  the  shop,  meek  like  a  lamb  ;  but  in  the  family, 
outrageous,  like  a  Libyan  lion.     The  sum  of  the  matter 
is,  it  is  necessary  for  a  tradesman  to  subject  himself,  by 
all  the  ways  possible,  to  his  business  ;  his  customers  are 
to  be  his  idols  :  so  far  as  he  may  worship  idols  by  allow- 
ance, he  is  to  bow  down  to  them,  and  worship  them  ;  at 
least,  he  is  not  in  any  way  to  displease   them,  or  show 
any  disgust  or  distaste,  whatever  they  may  say  or  do. 
The  bottom  of  all  is  that  he  is  intending  to  get  money  by 
them  ;  and  it  is  not  for  him  that  gets  money  to  offer  the 
least  inconvenience  to  them  by  whom  he  gets  it :  he  is 
to  consider  that,  as  Solomon  says,  '  the  borrower  is  serv- 
ant to  the  lender ; '  so  the  seller  is  servant  to  the  buyer." 
Poor  George  Dyer  "  commenced  life,  after  a  course  of 
hard  study,  in  the  '  House  of  Pure  Emanuel,'  as  usher  to  a 
knavish,  fanatic  school-master,  at  a  salary  of  eight  pounds 
per  annum,  with  board  and  lodging.    Of  this  poor  stipend 
he  never  received  above  half  in  all  the  laborious  years  he 
served  this  man.    He  tells  a  pleasant  anecdote,  that  when 
poverty,  staring  out  at  his  ragged  knees,  sometimes  com- 
pelled   him,  against  the  modesty  of  his  nature,  to  hint 
at  arrears,  the  school-master  would   take  no  immediate 
notice  ;   but   after   supper,  when   the  school  was   called 
together  to  even-song,  he  would  never  fail  to  introduce 
some  instructive  homily  against  riches,  and  the  corrup- 
tion of  the  heart  occasioned  through  the  desire  of  them, 
ending  with,  '  Lord,  keep  thy  servants,  above  all  things, 
from  the  heinous  sin  of  avarice.     Having  food  and  rai- 
ment, let  us  therewithal   be  content.      Give   me  Agur's 
wish,'  — and   the   like, —which,   to   the   little   auditorjr, 
sounded  like  a  doctrine  full  of  Christian  prudence  and 
simplicity,  but  to  poor  Dyer  was  a  receipt  in  full  for  that 
quarter's  demands  at  least." 

Southey  wrote  to  Cottle  from  Lisbon  :  "  The  English 
here   unite   the   spirit   of  commerce   with  the   frivolous 


DISGUISES.  89 

amusement  of  high  life.  One  of  them,  who  plays  every 
night  (Sundays  are  not  excepted  here),  will  tell  you  how 
closely  he  attends  to  profit.  '  I  never  pay  a  porter  for 
bringing  a  burden  till  the  next  day,'  says  he,  '  for  while 
the  fellow  feels  his  back  ache  with  the  weight,  he  charges 
high;  but  when  he  comes  the  next  day  the  feeling  is 
gone,  and  he  asks  only  half  the  money.'  And  the  au- 
thor of  this  philosophical  scheme  is  worth  two  hundred 
thousand  dollars  !  " 

"  The  late  grand  duke,"  said  Goethe  to  Eckermann, 
"was  very  partial  to  Merck,  so  much  so  that  he  once 
became  his  security  for  a  debt  of  four  thousand  dollars. 
"Very  soon  Merck,  to  our  surprise,  gave  him  back  his 
bond.  As  Merck's  circumstances  were  not  improved,  we 
could  not  divine  how  he  had  been  able  to  do  this.  When 
I  saw  him  again,  he  explained  the  enigma  thus  :  '  The 
duke,'  said  he,  'is  an  excellent,  generous  man,  who  trusts 
and  helps  men  whenever  he  can.  So  I  thought  to  myself, 
Now  if  you  cozen  him  out  of  his  money,  that  will  preju- 
dice a  thousand  others  ;  for  he  will  lose  his  precious  trust- 
fulness, and  many  unfortunate  but  worthy  men  will  suffer, 
because  one  was  worthless.  So  I  made  a  speculation,  and 
borrowed  the  money  from  a  scoundrel,  whom  it  will  be  no 
matter  if  I  do  cheat ;  but  if  I  had  not  paid  our  good  lord, 
the  duke,  it  would  have  been  a  pity.' " 

"  The  greatest  pleasure  I  know,"  said  Lamb,  "  is  to  do 
a  good  action  by  stealth,  and  to  have  it  found  out  by  ac- 
«ident." 


IV. 

STANDARDS. 

At  a  glance,  it  would  appear  that,  as  a  rule,  all  men 
think  all  men  imperfect  but  themselves.  It  follows,  there- 
fore, that  all  would  reform  all  but  themselves.  But  if 
every  man's  standard  of  excellence  could  be  accounted 
for,  what  a  melancholy  history  of  human  frailties  and 
follies  might  be  had.  What  sad  curiosities,  perhaps, 
would  be  our  pet  virtues — offspring,  alas,  too  often,  of 
sated  appetites,  spent  passions,  hair-breadth  escapes,  and 
disappointed  hopes.  Knowing  all,  with  what  wondrous 
pity  must  God  hear  our  poor  prayers.  To  seek  perfect 
virtue  or  contentment  "  is  as  hopeless  as  to  try  to  recover 
a  lost  limb.  Those  only  have  it  who  never  have  thought 
about  it.  The  moment  we  feel  that  we  wish  for  it,  we 
may  be  certain  that  it  is  gone  forever."  "To  know  how 
cherries  and  strawberries  taste,  you  must  ask  the  children 
and  the  birds." 

"  All  things,"  says  Emerson,  "  work  exactly  according 
to  their  quality,  and  according  to  their  quantity  ;  attempt 
nothing  they  cannot  do,  except  man."  He  ventures  "  to 
say  that  what  is  bad  is  bad,"  and  finds  himself  "  at  war 
with  all  the  world."  "  Do  not  be  so  vain  of  your  one  ob- 
jection. Do  you  think  there  is  only  one  ?  Alas,  my 
good  fiiend,  there  is  no  part  of  society  or  of  life  better 
than  any  other  part.  All  our  things  are  right  and  wrong 
together.  The  wave  of  evil  washes  all  alike."  "  Proba- 
bly there  never  was,"  says  De  Quincey,  "  one  thought, 
from  the  foundation  of  the  earth,  that  has  passed  through 
the  mind  of  man,  which  did  not  offer  some  blemish,  some 


STANDARDS.  9I 

son-owful  shadow  of  pollution,  when  it  came  up  for  re- 
view before  a  heavenly  tribunal ;  that  is,  supposing  It  a 
thought  entangled  at  all  with  human  interests  or  human 
passions."  "All  the  progress  which  we  have  really  made," 
says  a  writer  in  Blackwood,  "  and  all  the  additional  and 
fictitious  progress  which  exists  in  our  imagination,  prompts 
us  to  the  false  idea  that  there  is  a  remedy  for  everything, 
and  that  no  pain  is  inevitable.  But  there  are  pains  which 
are  inevitable  in  spite  of  philosophy,  and  conflicting  claims 
to  which  Solomon  himself  could  do  no  justice.  We  are 
not  complete  syllogisms,  to  be  kept  in  balance  by  intel- 
lectual regulations,  we  human  creatures.  We  are  of  all 
things  and  creatures  in  the  world  the  most  incomplete  ; 
and  there  are  conditions  of  our  warfare,  for  the  redress 
of  which,  in  spite  of  all  the  expedients  of  social  economy, 
every  man  and  woman,  thrown  by  whatever  accident  out 
of  the  course  of  nature,  must  be  content  to  wait  perhaps 
for  years,  perhaps  for  a  life  long,  perhaps  till  the  con- 
summation of  all  things."  "All  the  speculations  and 
schemes  of  the  sanguine  projectors  of  all  ages,"  says  John 
Foster,  "  have  left  the  world  still  a  prey  to  infinite  legions 
of  vices  and  miseries,  an  immortal  band,  which  has  tram- 
pled in  scorn  on  the  monuments  and  the  dust  of  the  self- 
idolizing  men  who  dreamed,  each  in  his  day,  that  they 
were  born  to  chase  these  evils  out  of  the  earth.  If  these 
vain  demi-gods  of  an  hour,  who  trusted  to  change  the 
world,  and  who  perhaps  wished  to  change  it  only  to  make 
it  a  temple  to  their  fame,  could  be  awaked  from  the  un- 
marked graves  into  which  they  sunk,  to  look  a  little  while 
round  on  the  world  for  some  traces  of  the  success  of  their 
projects,  would  they  not  be  eager  to  retire  again  into  the 
chambers  of  death,  to  hide  the  shame  of  their  remembered 
presumption  ?  "  "  It  is  not  given  to  reason,"  said  Vau- 
venaroTies,  "  to  cure  all  the  vices  of  nature."  "  For  a 
reasonable,  voluntary  being,"  says  Sterling,  "learning  as 
he  only  can  learn  by  experience,  there  will  always  be  er- 


92  LIBRARY   NOTES 

fors  behind  to  mourn  over,  and  a  vista  of  unattainable 
good  before,  which  inevitably  lengthens  as  we  advance.' 
If  we  only  could  "grieve  without  affectation  or  imbecility, 
and  journey  on  without  turning  aside  or  stopping." 

Leslie  says,  in  his  Recollections  :  "  I  remember  seeing 
at  Howard  Payne's  lodgings,  at  a  breakfast  which  he  gave 
to  a  large  party,  the  then  celebrated  Robert  Owen,  who 
was  at  that  time  filling  the  papers  with  his  scheme  for  re- 
modeling society  on  a  plan  that  was  to  transcend  Utopia. 
I  remember  Payne  telling  me  that  when  Wilberforce,  on 
being  urged  to  bring  this  plan  before  Parliament,  replied 
that  it  was  too  late  in  the  season,  Owen  exclaimed,  "What, 
sir !  put  off  the  happiness  of  mankind  till  another  session 
of  Parliament !  " 

"  I  overheard  Jove  one  day,"  said  Silenus,  "  talking  of 
destroying  the  earth  ;  he  said  it  had  failed  ;  they  were 
all  rogues  and  vixens,  who  went  from  bad  to  worse,  as  fast 
as  the  days  succeeded  each  other.  Minerva  said  she 
hoped  not ;  they  were  only  ridiculous  little  creatures,  with 
this  odd  circumstance,  that  they  had  a  blur,  or  indeter- 
minate aspect,  seen  far  or  near  ;  if  you  called  them  bad, 
they  would  appear  so ;  and  there  was  no  one  person  or 
action  among  them  which  would  HOt  puzzle  her  owl,  much 
more  all  Olympus,  to  know  whether  it  was  fundamentally 
bad  or  good." 

"  It  is  the  conviction  of  the  purest  men,  that  the  net 
amount  of  man  and  man  does  not  much  vary.  Each  is 
incomparably  superior  to  his  companion  in  some  faculty. 
Each  seems  to  have  some  compensation  yielded  to  him 
by  his  infirmity,  and  every  hinderance  operates  as  a  con- 
centration of  his  force."  "  Everything  we  do  has  its  re- 
sults. But  the  right  and  prudent  does  not  always  lead  to 
good,  or  contrary  measures  to  bad  ;  frequently  the  reverse 
takes  place.  Some  time  since,"  said  Goethe,  "  I  made  a 
mistake  in  one  of  these  transactions  with  booksellers,  and 
was  disturbed  that  I  had  done  so.    But,  as  circumstances 


STANDARDS.  93 

turned  out,  it  would  have  been  very  unfortunate  if  I  had 
not  made  that  very  mistake.  Such  instances  occur  fre- 
quently in  life,  and  it  is  the  observation  of  them  which 
enables  men  of  the  world  to  go  to  work  with  such  free- 
dom and  boldness." 

"  When  we  see  a  special  reformer,  we  feel  like  asking 
him,"  says  Emerson,  "What  right  have  you,  sir,  to  your 
one  virtue  ?  Is  virtue  piecemeal  ?  "  "  Your  mode  of  hap- 
piness," said  Coleridge,  talking  to  such  an  one,  "  would 
make  me  miserable.  To  go  about  doing  as  much  good 
as  possible,  to  as  many  men  as  possible,  is,  indeed,  an 
excellent  object  for  a  man  to  propose  to  himself ;  but 
then,  in  order  that  you  may  not  sacrifice  the  real  good 
and  happiness  of  others  to  your  particular  views,  which 
may  be  quite  different  from  your  neighbors',  you  must  do 
that  good  to  others  which  the  reason,  common  to  all,  pro- 
nounces to  be  good  for  all."  "  What  I  object,"  said  Syd- 
ney Smith,  "  to  Scotch  philosophers  in  general  is,  that 
they  reason  upon  man  as  they  would  upon  a  divinity; 
they  pursue  truth  without  caring  if  it  be  useful  truth." 
Michel  Angelo's  great  picture  of  the  Last  Judgment,  in 
the  Sistine  Chapel,  narrowly  escaped  from  destruction  by 
the  monastic  views  of  Paul  IV,  In  the  commencement 
of  his  reign,  we  are  told,  he  conceived  a  notion  of  reform- 
ing that  picture,  in  which  so  many  academical  figures  of- 
fended his  sense  of  propriety.  This  was  communicated 
to  Michel  Angelo,  who  desired  that  the  pope  might  be 
told  "that  what  he  wished  was  very  little,  and  might  be 
easily  effected  ;  for  if  his  holiness  would  only  reform  the 
opinions  of  mankind,  the  picture  would  be  reformed  of 
itself."  "  You  must  have  a  genius  for  charity  as  well  as 
for  anything  else.  As  for  doing  good,"  says  Thoreau, 
"that  is  one  of  the  professions  which  are  full.  What 
good  I  do,  in  the  common  sense  of  that  word,  must  be 
aside  from  my  main  path,  and  for  the  most  part  wholly 
unintended.     Men  say,  practically  Begin  where  you  are 


94  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

and  such  as  you  are,  without  aiming  mainly  to  become 
of  more  worth,  and  with  kindness  aforethought  go  about 
doing  good.  If  I  were  to  preach  at  all  in  this  strain,  I 
should  say,  rather,  Set  about  being  good.  As  if  the  sun 
should  stop  when  he  had  kindled  his  fires  up  to  the 
splendor  of  a  moon,  or  a  star  of  the  sixth  magnitude,  and 
go  about  like  a  Robin  Goodfellow,  peeping  in  at  every 
cottage  window,  inspiring  lunatics,  and  tainting  meats, 
and  making  darkness  visible,  instead  of  steadily  increas- 
ing his  genial  heat  and  beneficence  till  he  is  of  such 
brightness  that  no  mortal  can  look  him  in  the  face,  and 
then,  and  in  the  meanwhile  too,  going  about  the  world  in 
his  own  orbit,  doing  it  good,  or  rather,  as  a  truer  philos- 
ophy has  discovered,  the  world  going  about  him,  getting 
good.  When  Phaeton,  wishing  to  prove  his  heavenly 
birth  by  his  beneficence,  had  the  sun's  chariot  but  one 
day,  and  drove  out  of  the  beaten  track,  he  burned  several 
blocks  of  houses  in  the  lower  streets  of  heaven,  and 
scorched  the  surface  of  the  earth,  and  dried  up  every 
spring,  and  made  the  great  Desert  of  Sahara,  till  at  length 
Jupiter  hurled  him  headlong  to  the  earth  with  a  thunder- 
bolt, and  the  sun,  through  grief  at  his  death,  did  not  shine 
for  a  year." 

"  There  is  no  odor  so  bad,"  continues  the  same  defiant 
radical,  "  as  that  which  arises  from  goodness  tainted. 
It  is  human,  it  is  divine,  carrion.  If  I  knew  for  a  cer- 
tainty that  a  man  was  coming  to  my  house  with  the  con- 
scious design  of  doing  me  good,  I  should  run  for  my  life, 
as  from  that  dry  and  parching  wind  of  the  African  deserts 
called  the  simoom,  which  fills  the  mouth  and  nose  and 
ftars  and  eyes  with  dust  till  you  are  suffocated,  for  fear 
that  I  should  get  some  of  his  good  done  to  me,  —  some 
of  its  vinas  mingled  with  my  blood.  No  ;  in  this  case  I 
would  rather  sufiEer  evil  the  natural  way." 

An  officer  of  the  government  called  one  day  at  the 
White  House,  and  introduced  a  clerical  friend  to  Lincoln. 


STANDARDS.  95 

'•'  Mr.  President,"  said  he,  "  allow  me  to  present  to  you  mj 

friend,  the  Rev.  Mr.  F.,  of  .     Mr.  F.  has  expressed 

a  desire  to  see  you  and  have  some  conversation  with  you, 
and  I  am  happy  to  be  the  means  of  introducing  him." 
The  president  shook  hands  with  Mr.  F.,  and,  desiring 
him  to  be  seated,  took  a  seat  himself.  Then,  his  counte- 
nance having  assumed  an  air  of  patient  waiting,  he  said, 
"  I  am  now  ready  to  hear  what  you  have  to  say."  "  Oh, 
bless  you,  sir,"  said  Mr.  F.,  "  I  have  nothing  special  to 
say ;  I  merely  called  to  pay  my  respects  to  you,  and,  as 
one  of  the  million,  to  assure  you  of  my  hearty  sympathy 
and  support."  "  My  dear  sir,"  said  the  president,  rising 
promptly,  his  face  showing  instant  relief,  and  with  both 
hands  grasping  that  of  his  visitor,  "  I  am  very  glad  to 
see  you,  indeed.  I  thought  you  had  come  to  preach  to 
me!" 

"  My  father,"  said  the  Attic  Philosopher,  "  feared  every- 
thing that  had  the  appearance  of  a  lesson.  He  used  to 
say  that  virtue  could  make  herself  devoted  friends,  but 
she  did  not  take  pupils ;  therefore  he  was  not  anxious  to 
teach  goodness  ;  he  contented  himself  with  sowing  the 
seeds  of  it,  certain  that  experience  would  make  them 
grow."  "  The  disease  of  men,"  said  Mencius,  "  is  this : 
that  they  neglect  their  own  fields,  and  go  to  weed  the 
fields  of  others,  and  that  what  they  require  from  others  is 
great,  while  what  they  lay  upon  themselves  is  light." 

"There  are  a  thousand  hacking  at  the  branches  of 
evil,"  says  Thoreau,  again,  "  to  one  who  is  striking  at 
the  root ;  and  it  may  be  that  he  who  bestows  the  largest 
amount  of  time  and  money  on  the  needy  is  doing  the 
most  by  his  mode  of  life  to  produce  that  misery  which  he 
strives  in  vain  to  relieve.  It  is  the  pious  slave-breeder  de- 
voting the  proceeds  of  every  tenth  slave  to  buy  a  Sun- 
day's liberty  for  the  rest The  philanthropist  too 

often  surrounds  mankind  with  the  remembrance  of  his  own 
cast-off  griefs  as  an  atmosphere,  and  calls  it  sympathy, 


96  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

We  should  impart  our  courage,  and  not  our  despair,  our 
health  and  ease,  and  not  our  disease,  and  take  care  that 

this  does  not  spread  by  contagion If  anything  ail 

a  man,  so  that  he  does  not  perform  his  functions,  if  he 
have  a  pain  in  his  bowels  even,  for  that  is  the  seat  of 
sympathy,  he  forthwith  sets  about  reforming  —  the  world. 
Being  a  microcosm  himself,  he  discovers  —  and  it  is  a 
true  discovery,  and  he  is  the  man  to  make  it — that  the 
world  has  been  eating  green  apples ;  to  his  eyes,  in  fact, 
the  globe  itself  is  a  great  green  apple,  which  there  is  dan- 
ger awful  to  think  of  that  the  children  of  men  will  nibble 
before  it  is  ripe ;  and  straightway  his  drastic  philanthropy 
seeks  out  the  Esquimaux  and  the  Patagonian,  and  era- 
braces  the  populous  Indian  and  Chinese  villages ;  and 
thus,  by  a  few  years  of  philanthropic  activity,  the  powers 
in  the  meanwhile  using  him  for  their  own  ends,  no  doubt, 
he  cures  himself  of  his  dyspepsia,  the  globe  acquires  a 
faint  blush  on  one  or  both  of  its  cheeks,  as  if  it  were 
beginning  to  be  ripe,  and  life  loses  its  crudity  and  is  once 
more  sweet  and  wholesome  to  live.  I  never  dreamed  of 
any  enormity  greater  than  I  have  committed.  I  never 
knew,  and  never  shall  know,  a  worse  man  than  myself. 
....  My  excuse  for  not  lecturing  against  the  use 
of  tobacco  is  that  I  never  chewed  it ;  that  is  a  penalty 
which  reformed  tobacco-chewers  have  to  pay ;  though 
there  are  things  enough  I  have  chewed,  which  I  could 
lecture  against.  If  you  should  ever  be  betrayed  into  any 
of  these  philanthropies,  do  not  let  your  left  hand  know 
what  your  right  hand  does,  for  it  is  not  worth  knowing. 
Rescue  the  drowning,  and  tie  your  shoe-strings.  Take 
your  time,  and  set  about  some  free  labor." 

It  has  been  observed  that  persons  who  are  themselves 
very  pure  are  sometimes  on  that  account  blunt  in  their 
moral  feelings.  "  Right,  too  rigid,  hardens  into  wrong" 
—  even  into  cruelty  sometimes.  A  friend  of  one  of  these 
malicious  philanthropists  dined  with   him  one  day,  and 


STANDARDS.  97 

afterward  related  an  anecdote  illustrative  of  his  charac- 
ter. While  at  the  table,  the  children  of  the  refining  hu- 
manitarian, playing  about  the  open  door,  were  noisy  and  in- 
tractable, which  caused  him  to  speak  to  them  impatiently. 
The  disturbance,  however,  did  not  cease,  and  hearing  one 
of  -.he  children  cry  out,  he  jumped  spasmodically  from  the 
table,  and  demanded  to  know  what  was  the  matter.  Upon 
being  informed  that  one  of  them  had  accidentally  pinched 
the  finger  of  another,  he  immediately  seized  the  hand  of 
the  innocent  offender,  and  placing  the  forefinger  at  the 
hinge  of  the  door,  deliberately  closed  it — crushing  the 
poor  child's  finger  as  a  punishment.  There  is  another 
equally  authentic  story  of  a  reformer  who  hired  his  chil- 
dren to  go  to  bed  without  their  supper  as  a  means  of 
preserving  their  health,  and  then  stole  their  money  back 
again  to  pay  them  for  the  next  abstinence. 

"  I  have  never  known  a  trader  in  philanthropy,"  says 
Coleridge,  "who  was  not  wrong  in  head  or  heart  some- 
where or  other.  Individuals  so  distinguished  are  usually 
unhappy  in  their  family  relations  :  men  not  benevolent  or 
beneficent  to  individuals,  but  almost  hostile  to  them ;  yet 
lavishing  money  and  labor  and  time  on  the  race,  the  ab- 
stract notion."  "  This  is  always  true  of  those  men,"  says 
Hawthorne,  in  his  analysis  of  Hollingsworth,  "  who  have 
surrendered  themselves  to  an  overruling  power.  It  does 
not  so  much  impel  them  from  without,  nor  even  operate 
as  a  motive  power  from  within,  but  grows  incorporate  in 
all  they  think  and  feel,  and  finally  converts  them  into  lit- 
tle else  save  that  one  principle.  When  such  begins  to  be 
the  predicament,  it  is  not  cowardice,  but  wisdom,  to  avoid 
these  victims.  They  have  no  heart,  no  sympathy,  no  rea- 
son, no  conscience.  They  will  keep  no  friend,  unless  he 
make  himself  the  mirror  of  their  purpose  ;  they  will  smite 
and  slay  you,  and  trample  your  dead  corpse  under  foot, 
all  the  more  readily,  if  you  take  the  first  step  with  them, 
and  cannot  take  the  second,  and  the  third,  and  every 
7 


98  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

Other  step  of  their  terribly  straight  path.  They  have  an 
idol,  to  which  they  consecrate  themselves  high-priest,  and 
deem  it  holy  work  to  offer  sacrifices  of  whatever  is  most 
precious  ;  and  never  once  seem  to  suspect  —  so  cunning 
has  the  devil  been  with  them  —  that  this  false  deity,  in 
whose  iron  features,  immitigable  to  all  the  rest  of  man- 
kind, they  see  only  benignity  and  love,  is  but  a  spectrum 
of  the  very  priest  himself,  projected  upon  the  surround- 
ing darkness.  And  the  higher  and  purer  the  original 
object,  and  the  more  unselfishly  it  may  have  been  taken 
up,  the  slighter  is  the  probability  that  they  can  be  led  to 
recognize  the  process  by  which  godlike  benevolence  has 
been  debased  into  all-devouring  egotism." 

The  same  writer,  in  one  of  his  minor  productions,  says, 
"  When  a  good  man  has  long  devoted  himself  to  a  partic- 
ular kind  of  beneficence,  to  one  species  of  reform,  he  is 
apt  to  become  narrowed  into  the  limits  of  the  path  where- 
in he  treads,  and  to  fancy  that  there  is  no  other  good  to 
be  done  on  earth  but  that  self-same  good  to  which  he  has 
put  his  hand,  and  in  the  very  mode  that  best  suits  his  own 
conceptions.  All  else  is  worthless.  His  scheme  must  be 
wrought  out  by  the  united  strength  of  the  whole  world's 
stock  of  love,  or  the  world  is  no  longer  worthy  of  a  posi- 
tion in  the  universe.  Moreover,  powerful  Truth,  being 
the  rich  grape-juice  expressed  from  the  vineyard  of  the 
ages,  has  an  intoxicating  quality  when  imbibed  by  any 
save  a  powerful  intellect,  and  often,  as  it  were,  impels 
the  quaffer  to  quarrel  in  his  cups." 

At  a  dinner-party  one  day,  Madame  de  Stael  said  to 
Lady  Mackintosh,  after  Godwin  was  gone,  "  I  am  glad  to 
have  seen  this  man,  —  it  is  curious  to  see  how  naturally 
Jacobins  become  the  advocates  of  tyrants." 

"  I  have  often  blamed  myself,"  said  Boswell,  "for  not ' 
eeling   for   others    as   sensibly   as   many  say  they  do." 
"Sir,"  replied  Johnson,  "don't   be  duped   by  them  any 
more.     You  will  find   these  very  feeling  people  are  not 
very  ready  to  do  you  good.     They  pay  you  by  feeling." 


STANDARDS.  99 

A  very  large  proportion  of  the  men  who  during  the 
French  Revolution  proved  themselves  most  absolutely  in- 
different to  human  suffering,  were  deeply  attaciied  to  ani- 
mals. Fournier  was  devoted  to  a  squirrel,  Couthon  to  a 
spaniel,  Panis  to  two  gold  pheasants,  Chaumette  to  an 
aviary,  Marat  kept  doves.  Bacon  has  noticed  that  the 
Turks,  who  are  a  most  cruel  people,  are  nevertheless  con- 
spicuous for  their  kindness  to  animals,  and  he  mentions 
the  instance  of  a  Christian  boy  who  was  nearly  stoned  to 
death  for  gagging  a  long-billed  fowl.  Abbas,  the  vice- 
roy, when  a  boy,  had  his  pastry-cook  bastinadoed  to 
death.  Mehemet  AH  mildly  reproved  him  for  it,  as  a  Eu- 
ropean would  correct  a  child  for  killing  a  butterfly.  He 
explained  to  his  little  grandson  that  such  things  ought 
not  to  be  done  without  a  motive.  Abbe'  Migne  tells  how 
one  old  Roman  fed  his  oysters  on  his  slaves  ;  how  another 
put  a  slave  to  death  that  a  curious  friend  might  see  what 
dying  was  like ;  how  Galen's  mother  tore  and  bit  her 
waiting-women  when  she  was  in  a  passion  with  them.  Ca- 
ligula conferred  the  honor  of  priesthood  upon  his  horse. 
"The  day  before  the  Circensian  games,"  says  Suetonius, 
"he  used  to  send  his  soldiers  to  enjoin  silence  in  the 
neighborhood,  that  the  repose  of  the  animal  might  not  be 
disturbed.  For  this  favorite,  besides  a  marble  stable,  an 
ivory  manger,  purple  housings,  and  a  jeweled  frontlet,  he 
appointed  a  house,  with  a  retinue  of  slaves,  and  fine  fur- 
I  iture,  for  the  reception  of  such  as  were  invited  in  the 
norse's  name  to  sup  with  him.  It  is  even  said  that  he 
intended  to  make  him  consul."  In  Egypt  there  are  hos- 
pitals for  superannuated  cats,  and  the  most  loathsome 
insects  are  regarded  with  tenderness ;  but  human  life  is 
treated  as  if  it  were  of  no  account,  and  human  suffering 
scarcely  elicits  a  care. 

Sydney  Smith  advised  the  bishop  of  New  Zealand,  pre- 
vious to  his  departure,  to  have  regard  to  the  minor  as 
well  as  to  the  more  grave  duties  of  his  station  —  to  be 


lOO  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

given  to  hospitality,  and,  in  order  to  meet  the  tastes  of 
his  native  guests,  never  to  be  without  a  smoked  little  boy 
in  the  bacon-rack,  and  a  cold  clergyman  on  the  sideboard. 
"  And  as  for  myself,  my  lord,"  he  concluded,  "  all  I  can 
say  is,  that  when  your  new  parishioners  do  eat  you,  I  sin- 
cerely hope  you  will  disagree  with  them." 

Lamb  once  told  a  droll  story  of  an  India-house  clerk 
accused  of  eating  man's  flesh,  and  remarked  that  "  among 
cannibals  those  who  rejected  the  favorite  dish  would  be 
called  misanthropists." 

The  eternal  barbarisms  must  not  be  forgotten  by  the 
reformer  while  he  is  reforming  the  barbarians.  The 
pagan  Frisians,  that  illustrious  northern  German  tribe, 
afterward  known  as  the  "  free  Frisians,"  "  whose  name  is 
synonymous  with  liberty,  —  nearest  blood-relations  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race,"  —  struggled  for  centuries  against  the 
dominion  of  the  Franks,  and  were  only  eventually  subju- 
gated by  Charlemagne,  who  left  them  their  name  of  free 
Frisians.  "  The  Frisians,"  says  their  statute-book,  "  shall 
be  free  as  long  as  the  wind  blows  out  of  the  clouds  and 
the  world  stands."  Radbod,  their  chief,  was  first  over- 
come by  Pepin  the  younger,  and  Pepin's  bastard,  Charles 
the  Hammer,  with  his  "  tremendous  blows,  completed  his 
father's  work ; "  he  "  drove  the  Frisian  chief  into  submis- 
sion, and  even  into  Christianity.  A  bishop's  indiscretion, 
however,  neutralized  the  apostolic  blows  "  of  the  Chris- 
tian conqueror.  "  The  pagan  Radbod  had  already  im- 
mersed one  of  his  royal  legs  in  the  baptismal  font,  when 
a  thought  struck  him.  '  Where  are  my  dead  forefathers 
at  present  ? '  he  said,  turning  suddenly  upon  Bishop  Wolf- 
ran.  '  In  hell,  with  all  other  unbelievers,'  was  the  impru- 
dent answer.  '  Mighty  well,'  replied  Radbod,  removing 
his  leg,  '  then  will  I  rather  feast  with  my  ancestors  in  the 
halls  of  Woden,  than  dwell  with  your  little  starveling  band 
of  Christians  in  heaven,'  Entreaties  and  threats  were 
unavailing.     The  Frisian  declined  positively  a  rite  which 


STANDARDS.  lOI 

was  to  cause  an  eternal  separation  from  his  buried  kin- 
dred, and  he  died  as  he  had  lived,  a  heathen." 

Tomochichi,  chief  of  the  Chickasaws,  said  to  Wesley, 
"  I  will  go  up  and  speak  to  the  wise  men  of  the  nation, 
and  I  hope  they  will  hear.  But  we  would  not  be  made 
Christians  as  the  Spaniards  make  Christians  ;  we  would 
be  taught  before  we  are  baptised,"  He  felt  the  want  un- 
consciously acknowledged  by  the  King  of  Siam,  spoken 
of  by  John  Locke  in  his  chapter  on  Probability.  A  Dutch 
ambassador,  when  entertaining  the  king  with  the  peculiari- 
ties of  Holland,  amongst  other  things  told  the  sovereign 
that  the  water  in  Holland  would  sometimes  in  cold  weather 
be  so  hard  that  men  walked  upon  it,  and  that  it  would 
bear  an  elephant  if  he  were  there.  To  which  the  king 
replied,  "  Hitherto  I  have  believed  the  strange  things  you 
have  told  me,  because  I  looked  upon  you  as  a  sober,  fair 
man,  but  now  I  am  sure  you  lie."  But  Tomochichi  had 
an  eye  that  saw  the  faults  of  the  colonists,  if  he  did  not 
understand  their  religion.  When  urged  to  listen  to  the 
doctrines  of  Christianity  he  keenly  replied,  "Why,  these 
are  Christians  at  Savannah  !  these  are  Christians  at  Fred- 
erica  !  Christian  much  drunk !  Christian  beat  men ! 
Christian  tell  lies  1  Devil  Christian  !  Me  no  Christian  !  " 
This  recalls  the  pathetic  story  of  the  West  Indian  cazique, 
who,  at  the  stake,  refused  life,  temporal  or  eternal,  at  the 
price  of  conversion,  asking  where  he  should  go  to  live  so 
happily.  He  was  told  —  in  heaven  ;  and  then  he  at  once 
•■efused,  on  the  ground  that  the  whites  would  be  there  ;  and 
he  had  rather  live  anywhere,  or  nowhere,  than  dwell  with 
such  people  as  he  had  found  the  white  Christians  to  be. 
Almost  the  first  word,  says  Dr.  Medhurst,  uttered  by  a 
Chinese,  when  anything  is  said  concerning  the  excellence 
of  Christianity,  is,  "  Why  do  Christians  bring  us  opium, 
and  bring  it  directly  in  defiance  of  our  laws  ?  The  vile 
drug  has  destroyed  my  son,  has  ruined  my  brother,  and 
well-nigh  led  me  to  beggar  my  wife  and  children.     Sure'y 


I02  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

those  who  import  such  a  deleterious  substance,  and  injure 
me  for  the  sake  of  gain,  cannot  wish  me  well,  or  be  in 
possession  of  a  religion  better  than  my  own.     Go  first 
and  persuade   your  own  countrymen  to  relinquish  their 
nefarious  traffic;  and  give  me  a  prescription  to  correct 
this  vile  habit,  and  then  I  will  listen  to  your  exhortations 
on  the  subject  of  Christianity !  "     Dr.  Livingstone  says 
he  found  a  tribe  of  men  in  the  interior  of  Africa  so  pure 
and  simple  that  they  seemed  to  have  no  idea  of  untruth- 
fulness and  dishonesty  until  they  were  brought  into  con- 
tact with  Asiatics  and  Europeans.     Some  of  Dr.  Kane's 
men,  "  while  resting  at  Kalutunah's  tent,  had  appropriated 
certain  fox-skins,  boots,  and  sledges,  which  their  condition 
seemed  to  require.     The  Esquimaux  complained  of  the 
theft,  and  Dr.  Kane,  after  a  careful  inquiry  into  the  case, 
decided  in  their  favor.     He  gave  each  five  needles,  a  file, 
and  a  stick  of  wood,  and  knives  and  other  extras  to  Kalu- 
tunah  and  Shanghu,  and  after  regaling  them  with  a  hearty 
supper,  he  returned  the  stolen  goods,  and  tried  to  make 
them  believe  that  his  people  did  not  steal,  but  only  took 
the  articles  to  save  their  lives  !     In  imitation  of  this  Arctic 
morality  the  natives,  on  their  departure,  carried  off  a  few 
knives  and  forks,  which  they  deemed  as  essential  to  their 
happiness  as  the  fox-dresses  were  to  the  white  men." 

Among  the  airy  visions  which  had  been  generated  in 
the  teeming  brain  of  Coleridge,  says  a  writer  in  The  Lon- 
don Quarterly,  was  the  project  of   pantisocracy  —  a  re- 
public to  be  founded  in  the  wilds  of  America,  of  which 
the  fundamental  principles  were  an  equality  of  rank  and 
property,  and  where  all  who  composed  it  were  to  be  un- 
der the  perpetual  dominion  of  reason,  virtue,  and  love. 
Southey  was  inflamed  by  it  and  converted.     Through  it 
he  saw  a  way  out  of  all  his  troubles.     There  he  would 
enjoy  the  felicity  of  living  in  a  pure  democracy,  where  he 
could  sit  unelbowed  by  kings  and  aristocrats.     "You," 
he  wjote  to  his  brother  Tom,  "  are  unpleasantly  situated, 


STANDARDS.  IO3 

SO  is  my  mother,  so  were  we  all  till  this  grand  scheme  of 
pantisocracy  flashed  upon  our  minds,  and  now  all  is  per- 
fectly delightful."  Coleridge,  contented  to  have  delivered 
a  glowing  description  of  Utopia,  did  nothing  further,  and 
departed  on  a  pedestrian  tour  through  Wales,  where,  as 
the  ridiculous  will  sometimes  mingle  itself  with  the  sub- 
lime, he  feared  he  had  caught  the  itch  from  an  admiring 
democratical  auditor  at  an  inn,  who  insisted  upon  shaking 
hands  with  him.  Some  time  after,  Southey,  having  tiied 
his  panacea  upon  a  few  select  pantisocratic  friends,  wrote, 
"  Tliere  was  a  time  when  I  believed  in  the  persuadability 
of  man,  and  had  the  mania  of  man-mending.  Experience 
has  taught  me  better.  The  ablest  physician  can  do  little 
in  the  great  lazar-house  of  society.  He  acts  the  wisest 
part  who  retires  from  the  contagion." 

"  Nature  goes  her  own  way,"  said  Goethe,  "  and  all 
that  to  us  seems  an  exception  is  really  according  to  or- 
der." He  quoted  the  saying  of  Rousseau,  that  you  cannot 
hinder  an  earthquake  by  building  a  city  near  a  burning 
mountain.  Peter  the  Great,  he  said,  repeated  Amsterdam 
so  dear  to  his  youth,  in  locating  St.  Petersburg  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Neva.  The  ground  rises  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, and  the  emperor  could  have  had  a  city  quite  free 
from  all  the  trouble  arising  from  overflow  if  he  had  but 
gone  a  little  higher  up.  An  old  shipmaster  represented 
this  to  him,  and  prophesied  that  the  people  would  be 
drowned  every  seventy  years.  There  stood  also  an  old 
tree,  with  various  marks  from  times  when  the  waters  had 
risen  to  a  great  height.  But  all  was  in  vain  ;  the  emperor 
stood  to  his  whim,  and  had  the  tree  cut  down,  that  ic 
might  not  be  witness  against  him !  Sydney  Smith  said 
of  a  certain  fanatical  member  of  Parliament,  that  "  he 
was  losing  his  head.  When  he  brings  forward  his  Suck- 
ling Act,  he  will  be  considered  as  quite  mad.  No  woman 
o  be  allowed  to  suckle  her  own  child  without  medical 
certificates.     Three  classes,  viz.,  free-sucklers,  half-suck 


104  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

lers,  and  spoon-meat  mothers.  Mothers,  whose  supply  is 
uncertain,  to  suckle  upon  affidavit !  How  is  it  possible 
that  an  act  of  Parliament  can  supply  the  place  of  nature 
and  natural  affection  ?  " 

"  There  is  in  nature,"  said  Goethe  to  Soret,  "  an  access- 
ible and  an  inaccessible.  Be  careful  to  discriminate  be- 
tween the  two,  be  circumspect,  and  proceed  with  rever- 
ence." "  The  sight  of  a  primitive  phenomenon,"  he  said 
to  Eckermann,  "  is  generally  not  enough  for  people ;  they 
think  they  must  go  still  further ;  and  are  thus  like  chil- 
dren who,  after  peeping  into  a  mirror,  turn  it  round  di- 
rectly to  see  what  is  on  the  other  side."  "  When  one," 
said  he  on  another  occasion,  "  has  looked  about  him  in 
the  world  long  enough  to  see  how  the  most  judicious 
enterprises  frequently  fail,  and  the  most  absurd  have  the 
good  fortune  to  succeed,  he  becomes  disinclined  to  give 
any  one  advice.  At  bottom,  he  who  asks  advice  shows 
himself  limited ;  he  who  gives  it  gives  also  proof  that  he 
is  presumptuous.  If  any  one  asks  me  for  good  advice,  I 
say,  I  will  give  it,  but  only  on  condition  that  you  will 

promise  not  to  take  it Much  is  said  of  aristocracy 

and  democracy ;  but  the  whole  affair  is  simply  this :  in 
youth,  when  we  either  possess  nothing,  or  know  not  how 
to  value  the  tranquil  possession  of  anything,  we  are  dem- 
ocrats j  but  when  we,  in  a  long  life,  have  come  to  pos- 
sess something  of  our  own,  we  wish  not  only  ourselves  to 
be  secure  of  it,  but  that  our  children  and  grandchildren 
should  be  secure  of  inheriting  it.  Therefore,  we  always 
lean  to  aristocracy  in  our  old  age,  whatever  were  our  opin- 
ions in  youth." 

Lord  Eldon  said  in  his  old  age,  "that,  if  he  were  to 
begin  life  again,  he  would  be  damned  but  he  would  begin 
as  agitator,"  "  I  am  no  more  ashamed  of  having  been  a 
republican,"  said  Southey,  "  than  I  am  of  having  been  a 
child."  Barere,  who  said  that  "  the  tree  of  liberty  cannot 
flourish  unless  it  is  watered  by  the  blood  of  kings  and 


STANDARDS. 


105 


aristocrats  "  —  who  proposed  the  famous  decree  for  the 
annihilation  of  Lyons  —  devoted  a  great  part  of  his  later 
life  to  declaiming  on  the  necessity  of  entirely  abolishing 
capital  punishments. 

Elliott,  the  Corn-Law  Rhymer,  being  asked,  "  What  is 
a  communist  ?  "  answered,  "  One  who  has  yearnings  for 
equal  division  of  unequal  earnings.  Idler  or  bungler,  he 
is  willing  to  fork  out  his  penny  and  pocket  your  shilling." 

"  Sir,"  said  Johnson,  "  your  levelers  wish  to  level  down 
as  far  as  themselves ;  but  they  cannot  bear  leveling  up  to 
themselves.  They  would  all  have  some  people  under 
them  ;  why  not  then  have  some  people  above  them  ? " 

Margaret  Fuller,  speaking  of  the  greatest  of  German 
poets,  says,  "  He  believes  more  in  man  than  men,  effort 
than  success,  thought  than  action,  nature  than  provi- 
dence.    He  does  not  insist  on  my  believing  with  him." 

"  He  who  would  help  himself  and  others,"  says  Emer- 
son, "should  not  be  a  subject  of  irregular  and  interrupted 
impulses  of  virtue,  but  a  continent,  persisting,  immov- 
able person,  —  such  as  we  have  seen  a  few  scattered  up 
and  down  in  tihie  for  the  blessing  of  the  world ;  men  who 
have  in  the  gravity  of  their  nature  a  quality  which  an- 
swers to  the  fly-wheel  in  a  mill,  which  distributes  the  mo- 
tion equally  over  all  the  wheels,  and  hinders  it  from  fall- 
ing unequally  and  suddenly  in  destructive  shocks.  It  is 
better  that  joy  should  be  spread  over  all  the  day  in  the 
Corm  of  strength,  than  that  it  should  be  concentrated 
into  ecstasies,  full  of  danger,  and  followed  by  reactions." 
"  It  only  needs  that  a  just  man  should  walk  in  our  streets, 
to  make  it  appear  how  pitiful  and  inartificial  a  contriv- 
ance is  our  legislation.  The  man  whose  part  is  taken, 
and  who  does  not  wait  for  society  in  anything,  has  a 
power  which  society  cannot  choose  but  feel." 

What  a  character  was  Sir  Isaac  Newton !  He  is  de- 
scribed as  modest,  candid,  and  affable,  and  without  any 
tI  the  eccentricities  of  genius,  suiting  himself  to  ever^^' 


I06  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

company,  and  speaking  of  himself  and  others  in  such  a 
manner  that  he  was  never  even  suspected  of  vanity. 
'•  But  this,"  says  Dr.  Pemberton,  "  I  immediately  discov- 
ered in  him,  which  at  once  both  surprised  and  charmed 
me.  Neither  his  extreme  great  age,  nor  his  universal 
reputation,  had  rendered  him  stiff  in  opinion,  or  in  any 
degree  elated."  His  modesty  arose  from  the  depth  and 
extent  of  his  knowledge,  which  showed  him  what  a  small 
portion  of  nature  he  had  been  able  to  examine,  and  how 
much  remained  to  be  explored  in  the  same  field  in  which 
he  had  himself  labored.  In  a  letter  to  Leibnitz,  1675, 
he  observes,  "  I  was  so  jDersecuted  with  discussions  aris- 
ing out  of  my  theory  of  light,  that  I  blamed  my  own  im- 
prudence for  parting  with  so  substantial  a  blessing  as 
my  quiet,  to  run  after  a  shadow."  Nearly  a  year  after 
his  complaint  to  Leibnitz,  he  uses  the  following  remark- 
able expression  in  a  communication  to  Oldenburg  :  "  I 
see  I  have  made  myself  a  slave  to  philosophy  ;  but  if  I 
get  free  of  Mr.  Linus's  business,  I  will  resolutely  bid 
adieu  to  it  eternally,  excepting  what  I  do  for  my  private 
satisfaction,  or  leave  to  come  out  after  me ;  for  I  see  a 
man  must  either  resolve  to  put  out  nothing  new,  or  to 
become  a  slave  to  defend  it."  His  assistant  and  amanu- 
ensis for  five  years  (Humphrey  Newton)  never  heard  him 
laugh  but  once  in  all  that  time  :  "  'T  was  upon  occasion 
of  asking  a  friend,  to  whom  he  had  lent  Euclid  to  read, 
what  progress  he  had  made  in  that  author,  and  how  he 
liked  him.  He  answered  by  desiring  to  know  what  use 
and  benefit  in  life  that  study  would  be  to  him.  Upon 
which  Sir  Isaac  was  very  merry."  He  was  once  disor- 
dered with  pains  at  the  stomach,  which  confined  him  for 
some  days  to  his  bed,  but  which  he  bore  with  a  great 
deal  of  patience  and  magnanimity,  seemingly  indifferent 
either  to  live  or  to  die.  "  He  seeing  me,"  said  his  assist- 
ant, "  much  concerned  at  his  illness,  bid  me  not  trouble 
myself ;  '  For  if  I  die,'  said  Sir  Isaac,  '  I  shall  leave  you 


STANDARDS.  IO7 

an  estate,'  which  he  then  for  the  fiist  time  mentioned." 
Says  Bishop  Atterbury,  "In  the  whole  air  of  his  face 
and  make  there  was  nothing  of  that  penetrating  sagacity 
which  appears  in  his  compositions.  He  had  something 
rather  languid  in  his  look  and  maner,  which  did  not  raise 
any  great  expectations  in  those  who  did  not  know  him." 
When  Pope  expressed  a  wish  for  "  some  memoirs  and 
character  of  Newton,  as  a  private  man,"  he  did  "  not 
doubt  that  his  life  and  manners  would  make  as  great  a 
discovery  of  virtue  and  goodness  and  rectitude  of  heart, 
as  his  works  have  done  of  penetration  and  the  utmost 
stretch  of  human  knowledge."  When  Vigani  told  him  "  a 
loose  story  about  a  nun,"  he  gave  up  his  acquaintance  ; 
and  when  Dr.  Halley  ventured  to  say  anything  disre- 
spectful to  religion,  he  invariably  checked  him  with  the 
remark,  "  I  have  studied  these  things,  —  you  have  not." 
When  he  was  asked  to  take  snuff  or  tobacco,  he  declined, 
remarking  "that  he  would  make  no  necessities  to  him- 
self." Bishop  Burnet  said  that  he  "valued  him  for  some- 
thing still  more  valuable  than  all  his  philosophy,  —  for 
havinor  the  whitest  soul  he  ever  knew." 

Slowly  and  modestly  the  great  in  all  things  is  devel- 
oped. "Though  the  mills  of  God  grind  slowly,  yet 
they  grind  exceeding  small."  Look  at  the  Netherlands. 
"  Three  great  rivers  —  the  Rhine,  the  Meuse,  and  the 
Scheldt  —  had  deposited  their  slime  for  ages  among  the 
dunes  and  sand-banks  heaved  up  by  the  ocean  aiound 
their  mouths.  A  delta  was  thus  formed,  habitable  at  last 
for  man.  It  was  by  nature  a  wide  morass,  in  which  oozy 
islands  and  savage  forests  were  interspersed  among  la- 
goons and  shallows  ;  a  district  lying  partly  below  the 
level  of  the  ocean  at  its  higher  tides,  subject  to  constant 
overflow  from  the  rivers,  and  to  frequent  and  terrible  in- 
undations by  the  sea.  Here,  within  a  half  submerged 
territory,  a  race  of  wretched  ichthyophagi  dwelt  upon 
mounds,  wliich  they  had  raised,  like  beavers,  above  the 


I08  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

almost  fluid  soil.  Here,  at  a  later  day,  the  same  race 
chained  the  tyrant  Ocean  and  his  mighty  streams  into 
subserviency,  forcing  them  to  fertilize,  to  render  commo- 
dious, to  cover  with  a  beneficent  net-work  of  veins  and 
arteries,  and  to  bind  by  watery  highways,  with  the  far- 
thest ends  of  the  world,  a  country  disinherited  by  nature 
of  its  rights.  A  region  outcast  of  ocean  and  earth  wrested 
at  last  from  both  domains  their  richest  treasures.  A 
race  engaged  for  generations  in  stubborn  conflict  with 
the  angry  elements  was  unconsciously  educating  itself 
for  its  great  struggle  with  the  still  more  savage  despotism 
of  man." 

In  the  central  part  of  a  range  of  the  Andes,  at  an  ele- 
vation of  about  seven  thousand  feet,  on  a  bare  slope, 
may  be  observed  some  snow-white  projecting  columns. 
These  are  petrified  trees,  eleven  being  silicified,  and  from 
thirty  to  forty  converted  into  coarsely  crystallized  white 
calcareous  spar.  They  are  abruptly  broken  off,  the  up- 
right stumps  projecting  a  few  feet  above  the  ground. 
The  trunks  measured  from  three  to  five  feet  each  in  cir- 
cumference. They  stood  a  little  way  apart  from  each 
other,  but  the  whole  formed  one  group.  The  volcanic 
sandstone  in  which  the  trees  were  imbedded,  and  from 
the  lower  part  of  which  they  must  have  sprung,  had 
accumulated  in  successive  thin  layers  around  their  trunks, 
and  the  stone  yet  retained  the  impression  of  the  bark. 
"It  required,"  says  the  eminent  scientific  man  who  visited 
the  spot  in  1835,  "little  geological  practice  to  interpret 
the  marvelous  story  which  this  scene  at  once  unfolded. 
I  saw  the  spot  where  a  cluster  of  fine  trees  once  reared 
their  branches  on  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic,  when  that 
ocean,  now  driven  back  seven  hundred  miles,  came  to  the 
foot  of  the  Andes.  I  saw  that  they  had  sprung  from  a 
volcanic  soil  which  had  been  raised  above  the  level  of  the 
sea,  and  that  subsequently  this  dry  land,  with  its  upright 
trees,  had  been  let  down  into  the  depths  of  the  ocean.    In 


STANDARDS.  IO9 

these  depths,  the  formerly  dry  land  was  covered  by  sedi- 
mentary beds,  and  these  again  by  enormous  streams  of 
submarine  lava  —  one  such  mass  attaining  the  thickness 
of  a  thousand  feet ;  and  these  deluges  of  molten  stone 
and  aqueous  deposits  five  times  alternately  had  been 
spread  out.  The  ocean  which  received  such  thick  masses 
must  have  been  profoundly  deep ;  but  again  the  sub- 
terranean forces  exerted  themselves,  and  I  now  beheld 
the  bed  of  that  ocean,  forming  a  chain  of  mountains  more 
than  seven  thousand  feet  in  height.  Nor  had  those 
antagonist  forces  been  dormant  which  are  always  at  work, 
wearing  down  the  surface  of  the  land ;  the  great  piles  of 
strata  had  been  intersected  by  many  wide  valleys,  and  the 
trees,  now  changed  into  silex,  were  exposed  projecting 
from  the  volcanic  soil,  now  changed  into  rocks,  whence 
formerly,  in  a  green  and  budding  state,  they  had  raised 
their  lofty  heads." 

"  The  world,"  said  Goethe,  "  is  not  so  framed  that  it 
can  keep  quiet ;  the  great  are  not  so  that  they  will  not 
permit  misuse  of  power ;  the  masses  not  so  that,  in  hope 
of  a  gradual  amelioration,  they  will  keep  tranquil  in  an 
inferior  condition.  Could  we  perfect  human  nature,  we 
might  expect  perfection  everywhere  ;  but  as  it  is,  there 
will  always  be  this  wavering  hither  and  thither ;  one  part 
must  suffer  while  the  other  is  at  ease."  "  It  is  with 
human  things,"  says  Froude,  "  as  it  is  with  the  great  ice- 
bergs which  drift  southward  out  of  the  frozen  seas.  They 
swim  two  thirds  under  water,  and  one  third  above  ;  and 
so  long  as  the  equilibrium  is  sustained  you  would  think 
that  they  were  as  stable  as  the  rocks.  But  the  sea  water 
is  warmer  than  the  air.  Hundreds  of  fathoms  down,  the 
tepid  current  washes  the  base  of  the  berg.  Silently  In 
those  far  deeps  the  centre  of  gravity  is  changed ;  and 
then,  in  a  moment,  with  one  vast  roll,  the  enormous  mass 
heaves  over,  and  the  crystal  peaks  which  had  been 
glancing  so  proudly  in   the   sunlight  are   buried  in    the 


no  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

ocean  forever."  "The  secret  which  you  would  fain  keep, 
as  soon  as  you  go  abroad,  lo  !  there  is  one  standing  on 
the  door-step  to  tell  you  the  same."  The  revolution  is 
all  at  once  ripe,  and  the  bottom  is  at  the  top  again.  No- 
body and  everybody  is  responsible.  "  It  is  seldom,"  says 
John  Gait,  in  his  life  of  Wolsey,  "  that  any  man  can  sway 
the  current  of  national  affairs ;  but  a  wide  and  earnest 
system  of  action  never  fails  to  produce  results  which  re- 
semble the  preexpected  effects  of  particular  designs." 
At  the  gorgeous  coronation  of  Napoleon,  some  one  asked 
the  republican  general  Augereau  whether  anything  va*. 
wanting  to  the  splendor  of  the  scene.  "  Nothing,"  re- 
plied Augereau,  "but  the  presence  of  the  million  of  men 
who  have  died  to  do  away  with  all  this." 

You  remember  the  value,  to  the  cause  of  civil  liberty 
and  Christianity,  of  the  accidental  epithet  of  "  beggars," 
applied  to  the  three  hundred  nobles  who  petitioned  Mar- 
garet of  Parma  for  a  stay  of  the  edicts  of  Philip  and  the 
Inquisition,  about  to  be  terribly  executed  upon  the  re- 
bellious Protestants  under  the  leadership  of  William  of 
Orange.  Motley,  in  his  Dutch  Republic,  gives  a  vivid 
account  of  it.  The  duchess  was  agitated  and  irritated'' 
by  the  petition.  "The  Prince  of  Orange  addressed  a 
few  words  to  the  duchess,  with  the.  view  of  calming  her 
irritation.  He  observed  that  the  confederates  were  no 
seditious  rebels,  but  loyal  gentlemen,  well-born,  well- 
connected,  and  of  honorable  character.  They  had  been 
influenced,  he  said,  by  an  honest  desire  to  save  their 
country  from  impending  danger,  —  not  by  avarice  oi 
ambition,  *  What,  madam,'  cried  Berlaymont  in  a  pas- 
sion, *is  it  possible  that  your  highness  can  entertain  fears 
of  these  beggars  ?  Is  it  not  obvious  what  manner  of  men 
they  are  ?  They  have  not  had  wisdom  enough  to  manage 
their  own  estates,  and  are  they  now  to  teach  the  king  and 
your  highness  how  to  govern  the  country  ?  By  the  living 
God,  if  my  advice  were  taken,  their  petition  should  have 


STANDARDS.  1 1 1 

a  cudgel  for  a  commentary,  and  we  would  make  them  go 
down  the  steps  of  the  palace  a  great  deal  faster  than  they 
mounted  them  !  '  Afterward,  as  the  J:hree  hundred  gen- 
tlemen and  nobles  passed  by  the  house  of  Berlaymont, 
that  nobleman,  standing  at  his  window  in  company  with 
Count  Aremberg,  repeated  his  jest :  *  There  go  our  fine 
beggars  again.  Look,  I  pray  you,  with  what  bravado 
they  are  passing  before  us  ! '  '  They  call  us  beggars,'  said 
Brederode  to  the  three  hundred  banqueting  with  him  in 
the  Calemburg  mansion  on  that  famous  April  night.  '  Let 
us  accept  the  name.  We  will  contend  with  the  Inquisi- 
tion, but  remain  loyal  to  the  king,  even  till  compelled  to 
wear  the  beggar's  sack.'  He  then  beckoned  to  one  of 
his  pages,  who  brought  him  a  leathern  wallet,  such  as  was 
worn  at  that  day  by  professional  mendicants,  together 
with  a  large  wooden  bowl,  which  also  formed  part  of  their 
regular  appurtenances.  Brederode  immediately  hung  the 
wallet  around  his  neck^  filled  the  bowl  with  wine,  lifted  it 
with  both  hands,  and  drained  it  at  a  draught.  '  Long  live 
the  beggars  ! '  he  cried,  as  he  wiped  his  beard  and  set  the 
bowl  down.  '  Long  live  the  beggars  ! '  Then  for  the  first 
time  from  the  lips  of  those  reckless  nobles  rose  the 
famous  cry,  which  was  so  often  to  ring  over  land  and  sea, 
amid  blazing  cities,  on  blood-stained  decks,  through  the 
smoke  and  carnage  of  many  a  stricken  field.  The  humor 
of  Brederode  was  hailed  with  deafening  shouts  of  ap- 
plause. The  count  then  threw  the  wallet  round  the  neck 
of  his  nearest  neighbor,  and  handed  him  the  wooden 
bowl.  Each  guest,  in  turn,  donned  the  mendicant's 
knapsack.  Pushing  aside  his  golden  goblet,  each  filled 
the  beggar's  bowl  to  the  brim,  and  drained  it  to  the  beg- 
gars' health.  Roars  of  laughter  and  shouts  of  'Long 
live  the  beggars  ! '  shook  the  walls  of  the  stately  mansion, 
as  they  were  doomed  never  to  shake  again.  The  shib- 
boleth was  invented.  The  conjuration  which  they  had 
been  anxiously  seeking  was  found.     Their  enemies  had 


112  LIBRARY    NOTES. 

provided  them  with  a  spell  which  was  to  prove,  in  after 
days,  potent  enough  to  start  a  spirit  from  palace  or  hovel, 
forest  or  wave,  as  the  deeds  of  the  'wild  beggars,'  the 
'wood  beggars,'  and  the  'beggars  of  the  sea'  taught 
Philip  at  last  to  understand  the  nation  which  he  had 
driven  to  madness." 

Johnny  Appleseed,  by  which  name  Jonathan  Chapman 
was  known  in  every  log-cabin  from  the  Ohio  River  to  the 
Northern  Lakes,  is  an  interesting  character  to  remember. 
Barefooted,  and  with  scanty  clothing,  he  traversed  the 
wilderness  for  many  years,  planting  appleseeds  in  the 
most  favorable  situations.  His  self-sacrificing  life  made 
him  a  favorite  with  the  frontier  settlers  —  men,  women, 
and  especially  children  ;  even  the  savages  treated  him 
with  kindness,  and  the  rattlesnakes,  it  was  said,  hesitated 
to  bite  him.  "  During  the  war  of  1812,  when  the  frontier 
settlers  were  tortured  and  slaughtered  by  the  savage  allies 
of  Great  Britain,  Johnny  Appleseed  continued  his  wander- 
ings, and  was  never  harmed  by  the  roving  baricls  of  hostile 
Indians.  On  many  occasions  the  impunity  with  which  he 
ranged  the  country  enabled  him  to  give  the  settlers  warn- 
ing of  approaching  danger,  in  time  to  allow  them  to  take 
refuge  in  their  block-houses  before  the  savages  could  at- 
tack them.  An  informant  refers  to  one  of  these  instances, 
when  the  news  of  Hull's  surrender  came  like  a  thun- 
derbolt upon  the  frontier.  Large  bands  of  Indians  and 
British  were  destroying  everything  before  them,  and  mur- 
dering defenseless  women  and  children,  and  even  the 
block-houses  were  not  always  a  sufficient  protection.  At 
this  time  Johnny  traveled  day  and  night,  warning  the  peo- 
ple of  the  impending  danger.  He  visited  every  cabin 
and  delivered  this  message :  '  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is 
upon  me,  and  He  hath  anointed  me  to  blow  the  trumpet 
in  the  wilderness,  and  sound  an  alarm  in  the  forest ;  for 
behold,  the  tribes  of  the  heathen  are  round  about  your 
doors,  and  a  devouring  flame  foUoweth  after  them  J '     The 


STANDARDS.  II3 

aged  man  who  narrated  this  incident  said  that  he  could 
feel  even  then  the  thrill  that  was  caused  by  this  prophetic 
announcement  of  the  wild-looking  herald  of  danger,  who 
aroused  the  family  on  a  bright  moonlight  midnight  with 
his  piercing  cry.  Refusing  all  offers  of  food,  and  denying 
himself  a  moment's  rest,  he  traversed  the  border  day  and 
night  until  he  had  warned  every  settler  of  the  impending 
peril.  Johnny  also  served  as  colporteur,  systematically 
leaving  with  the  settlers  chapters  of  certain  religious 
books,  and  calling  for  them  afterward  ;  and  was  the  first 
to  engage  in  the  work  of  protecting  dumb  brutes.  He 
believed  it  to  be  a  sin  to  kill  any  creature  for  food.  No 
Brahman  could  be  more  concerned  for  the  preservation 
of  insect  life,  and  the  only  occasion  on  which  he  destroyed 
a  venomous  reptile  was  a  source  of  long  regret,  to  which 
he  could  never  refer  without  manifesting  sadness.  He 
had  selected  a  suitable  place  for  planting  appleseeds  on  a 
small  prairie,  and  in  order  to  prepare  the  ground,  he  was 
mowing  the  long  grass,  when  he  was  bitten  by  a  rattle- 
snake. In  describing  the  event  he  sighed  heavily,  and 
said,  '  Poor  fellow,  he  only  just  touched  me,  when  I,  in 
the  heat  of  my  ungodly  passion,  put  the  heel  of  my  scythe 
in  him,  and  went  away.  Some  time  afterward  I  went 
back,  and  there  lay  the  poor  fellow,  dead  ! '  "  "  He  was 
a  man,  after  all," — Hawthorne  might  have  exclaimed  of 
him,  too,  — "  his  Maker's  own  truest  image,  a  philan- 
thropic man  I  —  not  that  steel  engine  of  the  devil's  con- 
trivance —  a  philanthropist !  " 

John  Brown,  when  he  was  twelve  years  old,  from  see- 
ing a  negro  slave  of  his  own  age  cruelly  beaten,  began  to 
hate  slavery  and  love  the  slaves  so  intensely  as  "  some- 
times to  raise  the  question,  Is  God  their  Father .?  "  At 
forty,  "  he  conceived  the  idea  of  becoming  a  liberator  of 
the  Southern  slaves  ; "  at  the  same  time  "  determined  to 
let  them  know  that  they  had  friends,  and  prepared  him- 
self to  lead  them  to  liberty.     From  the  moment  that  he 


114  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

formed  this  resolution,  he  engaged  in  no  business  which 
he  could  not,  without  loss  to  his  friends  and  family,  wind 
up  in  fourteen  days."  His  favorite  texts  of  Scripture 
were,  "  Remember  them  that  are  in  bonds  as  bound  with 
them  ; "  "  Whoso  stoppeth  his  ear  at  the  cry  of  the 
poor,  he  also  shall  cry  himself,  but  shall  not  be  heard  ; " 
"  Whoso  mocketh  the  poor  reproacheth  his  Maker,  and 
he  that  is  glad  at  calamities  shall  not  be  unpunished  ; " 
"Withhold  not  good  from  them  to  whom  it  is  due,  when 
it  is  in  the  power  of  thine  hand  to  do  it."  His  favorite 
hymns  were,  "  Blow  ye  the  trumpet,  blow ! "  and  "  Why 
should  we  start  and  fear  to  die  ?  "  "I  asked  him,"  said 
a  child,  "  how  he  felt  when  he  left  the  eleven  slaves,  taken 
from  Missouri,  safe  in  Canada  ?  His  answer  was,  '  Lord, 
permit  now  thy  servant  to  die  in  peace,  for  mine  eyes 
have  seen  thy  salvation.  I  could  not  brook  the  idea  that 
any  ill  should  befall  them,  or  they  be  taken  back  to  slav- 
ery. The  arm  of  Jehovah  protected  us.'  "  "  Upon  one 
occasion,  when  one  of  the  ex-governors  of  Kansas  said  to 
him  that  he  was  a  marked  man,  and  that  the  Missourians 
were  determined,  sooner  or  later,  to  take  his  scalp,  the 
old  man  straightened  himself  up,  with  a  glance  of  enthu- 
siasm and  defiance  in  his  gray  eye.  '  Sir,'  said  he,  '  the 
angel  of  the  Lord  will  camp  round  about  me.' "  On 
'leaving  his  family  the  first  time  he  went  to  Kansas,  he 
said,  "  If  it  is  so  painful  for  us  to  part,  with  the  hope  of 
meeting  again,  how  dreadful  must  be  the  separation  for 
life  of  hundreds  of  poor  slaves."  "  He  deliberately  de- 
termined, twenty  years  before  his  attack  upon  Harper's 
Ferry,"  says  Higginson,  "  that  at  some  future  period  he 
would  organize  an  armed  party,  go  into  a  slave  State,  and 
liberate  a  large  number  of  slaves.  Soon  after,  surveyhjg 
professionally  in  the  mountains  of  Virginia,  he  chose  the 
very  ground  for  the  purpose.  He  said  *  God  had  estab- 
lished the  Alleghany  Mountains  from  the  foundation  of 
the  world  that  they  might  one  day  be  a  refuge  for  fugitive 


STANDARDS.  1 1 5 

slaves.  Visiting  Europe  afterward,  he  studied  military 
strategy  for  this  purpose,  even  making  designs  for  a  new 
style  of  forest  fortifications,  simple  and  ingenious,  to  be 
used  by  parties  of  fugitive  slaves  when  brought  to  bay. 
He  knew  the  ground,  he  knew  his  plans,  he  knew  him- 
self ;  but  where  should  he  find  his  men  ?  Such  men  as 
he  needed  are  not  to  be  found  ordinarily ;  they  must  be 
reared.  John  Brown  did  not  merely  look  for  men,  there- 
fore ;  he  reared  them  in  his  sons.  Mrs.  Brown  had  been 
always  the  sharer  of  his  plans.  '  Her  husband  always  be- 
lieved,' she  said,  *  that  he  was  to  be  an  instrument  in  the 
hands  of  Providence,  and  she  believed  it  too.'  'This 
plan  had  occupied  his  thoughts  and  prayers  for  twenty 
years.'  *  Many  a  night  he  had  lain  awake  and  prayed 
concerning  it.'  "  "  He  believed  in  human  brotherhood, 
and  in  the  God  of  Battles  ;  he  admired  Nat  Turner,  the 
negro  patriot,  equally  with  George  Washington,  the  white 
American  deliverer."  "  He  secretly  despised  even  the 
ablest  antislavery  orators.  He  could  see  '  no  use  in  this 
talking,'  he  said.  'Talk  is  a  national  institution;  but  it 
does  no  manner  of  good  to  the  slave.'  "  The  year  be- 
fore his  attack,  he  uttered  these  sentences  in  conversa- 
tion :  "  Nat  Turner,  with  fifty  men,  held  Virginia  five 
weeks.  The  same  number,  well  organized  and  armed, 
can  shake  the  system  out  of  the  State."  "  Give  a  slave 
a  pike,  and  you  make  him  a  man.  Deprive  him  of  the 
means  of  resistance,  and  you  keep  him  down."  "The 
land  belongs  to  the  bondsman.  He  has  enriched  it,  and 
been  robbed  of  its  fruits."  "Any  resistance,  however 
bloody,  is  better  than  the  system  which  makes  every 
seventh  woman  a  concubine."  "  A  few  men  in  the  right, 
and  knowing  they  are,  can  overturn  a  king.  Twenty 
men  in  the  AUeghanies  could  break  slavery  to  pieces  in 
two  years."  "  When  the  bondsmen  stand  like  men,  the 
nation  will  respect  them.  It  is  necessary  to  teach  them 
this."     About  the  same  time  he  said,  in  another  conver 


Il6  LIBRARY   NOTES 

sation,  "  that  it  was  nothing  to  die  in  a  good  cause,  but 
an  eternal  disgrace  to  sit  still  in  the  presence  of  the  bar- 
barities of  American  slavery."  "  Providence,"  said  he, 
*'  has  made  me  an  actor,  and  slavery  an  outlaw."  "  Duty 
is  the  voice  of  God,  and  a  man  is  neither  worthy  of  a 
good  home  here,  or  a  heaven,  that  is  not  willing  to  be  in 
peril  for  a  good  cause."  He  scouted  the  idea  of  rest 
while  he  held  "  a  commission  direct  from  God  Almighty 
to  act  against  slavery."  After  his  capture,  and  while  he 
lay  in  blood  upon  the  floor  of  the  guard-house,  he  was 
asked  by  a  bystander  upon  what  principle  he  justified  his 
acts  ?  "  Upon  the  Golden  Rule,"  he  answered.  "  I  pity 
the  poor  in  bondage  that  have  none  to  help  them.  That 
is  why  I  am  here  ;  it  is  not  to  gratify  any  personal  ani- 
mosity, or  feeling  of  revenge,  or  vindictive  spirit.  It  is 
my  sympathy  with  the  oppressed  and  the  wronged,  that 
are  as  good  as  you,  and  as  precious  in  the  sight  of  God. 
I  want  you  to  understand,  gentlemen,  that  I  respect  the 
rights  of  the  poorest  and  weakest  of  the  colored  people, 
oppressed  by  the  slave  system,  just  as  much  as  I  do  those 
of  the  most  wealthy  and  powerful.  That  is  the  idea  that 
has  moved  me,  and  that  alone.  We  expected  no  reward 
except  the  satisfaction  of  endeavoring  to  do  for  those  in 
distress  —  the  greatly  oppressed — as  we  would  be  done 
by.  The  cry  of  distress,  of  the  oppressed,  is  my  reason, 
and  the  only  thing  that  prompted  me  to  come  here.  I 
wish  to  say,  furthermore,  that  you  had  better,  all  you  peo- 
ple of  the  South,  prepare  yourselves  for  a  settlement  of 
this  question.  It  must  come  up  for  settlement  sooner 
than  you  are  prepared  for  it,  and  the  sooner  you  com- 
mence that  preparation,  the  better  for  you.  You  may 
dispose  of  me  very  easily.  I  am  nearly  disposed  of  now ; 
but  this  question  is  still  to  be  settled  —  this  negro  ques- 
tion, I  mean.  The  end  of  that  is  not  yet."  In  his  "  last 
speech,"  before  sentence  was  passed  upon  him,  he  said, 
''This  court  acknowledges,  as  I  suppose,  the  validity  of 


STANDARDS.  II7 

the  law  of  God.  I  see  a  book  kissed  here  which  I  sup- 
pose to  be  the  Bible,  or,  at  least,  the  New  Testament. 
That  teaches  me  that  all  things  *  whatsoever  I  would  that 
men  should  do  unto  me  I  should  do  even  so  to  them.' 
It  teaches  me  further,  to  'remember  them  that  are  in 
bonds  as  bound  with  them.'  I  endeavored  to  act  up  to 
that  instruction.  I  say,  I  am  yet  too  young  to  understand 
that  God  is  any  respecter  of  persons.  I  believe  that  to 
have  interfered  as  I  have  done,  as  I  have  always  freely 
admitted  I  have  done,  in  behalf  of  his  despised  poor,  was 
not  wrong,  but  right.  Now,  if  it  is  deemed  necessary 
that  I  should  forfeit  my  life  for  the  furtherance  of  the 
ends  of  justice,  and  mingle  my  blood  further  with  the 
blood  of  my  children,  and  with  the  blood  of  millions  in 
this  slave  country  whose  rights  are  disregarded  by  wicked, 
cruel,  and  unjust  enactments  —  I  submit:  so  let  it  be 
done."  In  a  postscript  to  a  letter  to  a  half-brother,  writ- 
ten in  prison,  he  said,  "  Say  to  my  poor  boys  never  to 
grieve  for  one  moment  on  my  account ;  and  should  any 
of  you  live  to  see  the  time  when  you  will  not  blush  to 
own  your  relation  to  old  John  Brown,  it  will  not  be  more 
strange  than  many  things  that  have  happened."  In  a 
letter  to  his  old  school-master,  he  said,  "  I  have  enjoyed 
much  of  life,  as  I  was  enabled  to  discover  the  secret  of 
this  somewhat  early.  It  has  been  in  making  the  prosper- 
ity and  happiness  of  others  my  own  ;  so  that  really  I  have 
had  a  great  deal  of  prosperity."  To  another  he  wrote, 
"  I  commend  my  poor  family  to  the  kind  remembrance 
of  all  friends,  but  I  well  understand  that  they  are  not  the 
only  poor  in  our  world.  I  ought  to  begin  to  leave  off 
saying  our  world."  In  his  last  letter  to  his  family,  he 
said,  "  I  am  waiting  the  hour  of  my  public  murder  with 
great  composure  of  mind  and  cheerfulness,  feeling  the 
strong  assurance  that  in  no  other  possible  way  could  I 
be  used  to  so  much  advantage  to  the  cause  of  God  and 
of   humanity,  and  that  nothing  that  I  or  all  my  faro'ly 


Il8  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

have  sacrificed  or  suiifered  v/ill  be  lost.  Do  not  feel 
ashamed  on  my  account,  nor  for  one  moment  despair  of 
the  cause,  or  grow  weary  of  well-doing.  I  bless  God  I 
never  felt  stronger  confidence  in  the  certain  and  near 
approach  of  a  bright  morning  and  glorious  day  than  I 
have  felt,  and  do  now  feel,  since  my  confinement  here." 
In  a  previous  letter  to  his  family,  he  said,  "  Never  forget 
the  poor,  nor  think  anything  you  bestow  on  them  to  be 
lost  to  you,  even  though  they  may  be  as  black  as  Ebed- 
melech,  the  Ethiopian  eunuch,  who  cared  for  Jeremiah  in 
the  pit  of  the  dungeon,  or  as  black  as  the  one  to  whom 
Philip  preached  Christ.  '  Remember  them  that  are  in 
bonds  as  bound  with  them.' "  As  he  stepped  out  of  the 
jail-door,  on  his  way  to  the  gallows,  "  a  black  woman, 
with  a  little  child  in  her  arms,  stood  near  his  way.  The 
twain  were  of  the  despised  race  for  whose  emancipation 
and  elevation  to  the  dignity  of  the  children  of  God  he  was 
about  to  lay  down  his  life.  His  thoughts  at  that  moment 
none  can  know  except  as  his  acts  interpret  them.  He 
stopped  for  a  moment  in  his  course,  stooped  over,  and 
with  the  tenderness  of  one  whose  love  is  as  broad  as  the 
brotherhood  of  man,  kissed  it  affectionately.  As  he  came 
upon  an  eminence  near  the  gallows,  he  cast  his  eye  over 
the  beautiful  landscape,  and  followed  the  windings  of  the 
Blue  Ridge  Mountains  in  the  distance.  He  looked  up 
earnestly  at  the  sun,  and  sky,  and  all  about,  and  then  re- 
marked, 'This  is  a  beautiful  country.  I  have  not  cast 
my  eyes  over  it  before.'  "  "  You  are  more  cheerful  than 
I  am,  Captain  Brown,"  said  the  undertaker,  who  sat  with 
him  in  the  wagon.  "  Yes,"  answered  the  old  man,  "  I 
ought  to  be."  "  '  Gentlemen,  good-by,'  he  said  to  two 
acquaintances,  as  he  passed  from  the  wagon  to  the  scat- 
fold,  which  he  was  first  to  mount.  As  he  quietly  awaited 
the  necessary  arrangements,  he  surveyed  the  scenery  un- 
moved, looking  principally  in  the  direction  of  the  people 
in  the  far  distance.     *  There  is  no  faltering  in  his  step, 


STANDARDS.  1 19 

wrote  one  who  saw  him,  '  but  firmly  and  erect  he  stands 
amid  the  almost  breathless  lines  of  soldiery  that  surround 
him.  With  a  graceful  motion  of  his  pinioned  right  arm 
he  takes  the  slouched  hat  from  his  head  and  carelessly 
casts  it  upon  the  platform  by  his  side.  His  elbows  and 
ankles  are  pinioned,  the  white  cap  is  drawn  over  his  eyes, 
the  hangman's  rope  is  adjusted  around  his  neck.'  '  Cap- 
tain Brown,'  said  the  sheriff,  *  you  are  not  standing  on 
the  drop.  Will  you  come  forward  ? '  *  I  can't  see  you, 
gentlemen,'  was  the  old  man's  answer,  unfalteringly 
spoken ;  '  you  must  lead  me.'  The  sheriff  led  his  pris- 
oner forward  to  the  centre  of  the  drop.  *  Shall  I  give 
you  a  handkerchief,'  he  then  asked,  '  and  let  you  drop  it 
as  a  signal  ? '  '  No ;  I  am  ready  at  any  time  ;  but  do  not 
keep  me  needlessly  waiting.'  " 

"  Give  the  corpse  a  good  dose  of  arsenic,  and  make 
sure  work  of  it !  "  exclaimed  a  captain  of  Virginia  militia. 

"The  saint,  whose  martyrdom  will  make  the  gallows 
glorious  like  the  cross  !  "  exclaimed  the  Massachusetts 
sage  and  seer, 

Froude's  reflections  upon  the  death  of  John  Davis,  the 
navigator,  one  of  England's  Forgotten  Worthies,  may  well 
be  applied  to  John  Brown  :  "  A  melancholy  end  for  such 
a  man  —  the  end  'of  a  warrior,  not  dying  Epaminondas- 
like  on  the  field  of  victory,  but  cut  off  in  a  poor  brawl 
or  ambuscade.  Life  with  him  was  no  summer  holiday, 
but  a  holy  sacrifice  offered  up  to  duty,  and  what  his  Mas- 
ter sent  was  welcome."  It  was  "  hard,  rough,  and  thorny, 
trodden  with  bleeding  feet  and  aching  brow ;  the  life  of 
which  the  cross  is  the  symbol ;  a  battle  which  no  peace 
follows,  this  side  the  grave  ;  which  the  grave  gapes  to 
finish,  before  the  victory  is  won;  and  —  strange  that  it 
should  be  so  —  this  is  the  highest  life  of  man.  Look 
back  along  the  great  names  of  history  ;  there  is  none 
whose  life  has  been  other  than  this.  They  to  whom  it 
bas  been  given  to  do  the  really  highest  work  in  this  earth, 


120  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

whoever  they  are,  Jew  or  Gentile,  Pagan  or  Christian, 
warriors,  legislators,  philosophers,  priests,  poets,  kings, 
slaves  —  one  and  all,  their  fate  has  been  the  same  :  the 
same  bitter  cup  has  been  given  to  them  to  drink." 

"  Whether  on  the  scaffold  high, 
Or  in  the  battle's  van, 
The  fittest  place  where  man  can  die 
Is  where  he  dies  for  man." 


V. 

REWARDS. 

The  Bishop  of  Llandaff  was  standing  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  in  company  with  Lords  Thurlow  and  Loughbor- 
ough, when  Lord  Southampton  accosted  him :  "  I  want 
your  advice,  my  lord  ;  how  am  I  to  bring  up  my  son  so 
as  to  make  him  get  forward  in  the  world  ?  "  "I  know  of 
but  one  way,"  replied  the  bishop  ;  "  give  him  parts  and 
poverty."  Poussin,  being  shown  a  picture  by  a  person 
of  rank,  remarked,  "  You  only  want  a  little  poverty,  sir, 
to  make  you  a  good  painter." 

"  The  advantage  of  riches  remains  with  him  who  pro- 
cured them,  not  with  the  heir,"  Yet,  says  Froude,  "  The 
man  who  with  no  labor  of  his  own  has  inherited  a  fortune, 
ranks  higher  in  the  world's  esteem  than  his  father  who 
made  it.  We  take  rank  by  descent.  Such  of  us  as  have 
the  longest  pedigree,  and  are  therefore  the  faithest  re- 
moved from  the  first  who  made  the  fortune  and  founded 
the  family,  we  are  the  noblest.  The  nearer  to  the  fount- 
ain, the  fouler  the  stream  ;  and  that  first  ancestor,  who 
las  soiled  his  fingers  by  labor,  is  no  better  than  a  par- 
venu." 

Labor,  curse  though  we  call  it,  as  things  are,  seems  to 
be  life's  greatest  blessing.  "There  is  more  fatigue," 
says  Tom  Brown,  "  and  trouble  in  a  lady  than  in  the  most 
laborious  life  ;  who  would  not  rather  drive  a  wheelbarrow 
with  nuts  about  the  streets,  or  cry  brooms,  than  be  Ar- 
sennus?"  (a  fine  gentleman).  When  Sir  Horace  Vere 
died,  it  was  asked  what  had  occasioned  his  death  ;  to 
which  some  one  replied,    "  By  doing   nothing."      "  Too 


122  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

much  idleness,"  said  Burke,  "fills  up  a  man's  time  much 
more  completely,  and  leaves  him  less  his  own  master  than 
any  sort  of  employment  whatsoever."  What  to  do  ?  how 
to  do .''  become  distressing  questions  to  him,  and  he  finds 
himself  in  as  great  extremit)  as  the  man  in  the  story  of 
the  Persian  poet :  "  I  saw,''  says  Saadi,  "  an  Arab  sitting 
in  a  circle  of  jewelers  of  Basrah,  and  relating  as  follows  : 
Once  on  a  time  having  missed  my  way  in  the  desert,  and 
having  no  provisions  left,  I  gave  myself  up  for  lost ;  when 
I  happened  to  find  a  bag  full  of  pearls.  I  shall  never 
torget  the  relish  and  delight  that  I  felt  on  supposing  it  to 
be  fried  wheat ;  nor  the  bitterness  and  despair  which  I 
suffered  on  discovering  that  the  bag  contained  pearls." 

In  the  executive  chamber  one  evening,  there  were  pres- 
ent a  number  of  gentlemen,  among  them  Mr.  Seward,  A 
point  in  the  conversation  suggesting  the  thought,  the  pres- 
ident said,  "  Seward,  you  never  heard,  did  you,  how  I 
earned  my  first  dollar  ?  "  "  No,"  rejoined  Mr.  Seward. 
"  Well,"  continued  Lincoln,  "  I  was  about  eighteen  years 
of  age  ;  I  belonged,  you  know,  to  what  they  call  down 
South  the  '  scrubs  ; '  people  who  do  not  own  slaves  are 
nobody  there.  But  we  had  succeeded  in  raising,  chiefly 
by  my  labor,  sufficient  produce,  as  I  thought,  to  justify 
me  in  taking  it  down  the  river  to  sell.  After  much  per- 
suasion, I  got  the  consent  of  mother  to  go,  and  con- 
structed a  little  flat-boat,  large  enough  to  take  a  barrel  or 
two  of  things  that  we  had  gathered,  with  myself  and  little 
bundle,  down  to  New  Orleans.  A  steamer  was  coming 
down  the  river.  We  have,  you  know,  no  wharves  on  the 
Western  streams ;  and  the  custom  was,  if  passengers 
were  at  any  of  the  landings,  for  them  to  go  out  in  a  boat, 
the  steamer  stopping  and  taking  them  on  board.  I  was 
contemplating  my  new  flat-boat,  wondering  whether  I 
could  make  it  stronger  or  improve  it  in  any  particular, 
when  two  men  came  down  to  the  shore  in  carriages,  with 
trunks,  and   looking  at  the  different  boats,  singled  out 


REWARDS.  123 

mine,  and  asked,  *  Who  owns  this  ? '  I  answered,  some- 
what modestly,  'I  do.'  'Will  you,'  said  one  of  them, 
'  take  us  and  our  trunks  out  to  the  steamer  ? '  '  Certainly,' 
said  I.  I  was  very  glad  to  have  the  chance  of  earning 
something.  I  supposed  that  each  of  them  would  give  me 
two  or  three  bits.  The  trunks  were  put  on  my  flat-boat, 
the  passengers  seated  themselves  on  the  trunks,  and  I 
sculled  them  out  to  the  steamboat.  They  got  on  board, 
and  I  lifted  up  their  heavy  trunks,  and  put  them  on  deck. 
The  steamer  was  about  to  put  on  steam  again,  when  I 
called  out  that  they  had  forgotten  to  pay  me.  Each  of 
them  took  from  his  pocket  a  silver  half-dollar,  and  threw 
it  on  the  floor  of  my  boat.  I  could  scarcely  believe  my 
eyes  as  I  picked  up  the  money.  Gentlemen,  you  may 
think  it  was  a  very  little  thing,  and  in  these  days  it  seems 
to  me  a  trifle;  but  it  was  a  most  important  incident  in 
my  life.  I  could  scarcely  credit  that  I,  a  poor  boy,  had 
earned  a  dollar  in  less  than  a  day, —  that  by  honest  work 
I  had  earned  a  dollar.  The  world  seemed  wider  and 
fairer  before  me.  I  was  a  more  hopeful  and  confident 
being  from  that  time." 

Only  such  persons  interest  us,  it  has  been  said,  who 
have  stood  in  the  jaws  of  need,  and  have  by  their  own  wit 
and  might  extricated  themselves,  and  made  man  vic- 
torious. Young  and  old,  all  of  us,  have  been  intensely 
interested  in  knowing  what  Robinson  Crusoe  was  to  do 
with  his  few  small  means.  Wonderful  Robert  Burns! 
"While  his  youthful  mother  was  still  on  the  straw,  the 
miserable  clay  cottage  fell  above  her  and  the  infant  bard, 
who  both  narrowly  escaped,  first  being  smothered  to 
death,  and  then  of  being  starved  by  cold,  as  they  were 
conveyed  through  frost  and  snow  by  night  to  another 
dwelling."  While  he  was  yet  a  child,  the  poverty  of  the 
family  increased  to  wretchedness.  The  "  cattle  died,  or 
were  lost  by  accident ;  the  crops  failed,  and  debts  were 
accumulating.      To   these   buffetings   of    misfortune   th« 


124  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

family  could  oppose  only  hard  labor  and  the  most  rigid 
economy.  They  lived  so  sparingly  that  butcher-meat  was 
a  stranger  in  their  dwelling  for  years."  *'  The  farm  proved 
a  ruinous  bargain,"  said  the  poet ;  "  and  to  clinch  the 
misfortune,  we  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  factor,  who  sat  for 
the  picture  I  have  drawn  of  one  in  my  tale  of  Twa  Dogs. 
My  indignation  yet  boils  at  the  recollection  of  the  scoun- 
drel factor's  insolent  letters,  which  used  to  set  us  all  in 
tears.  This  kind  of  life  —  the  cheerless  gloom  of  a  her- 
mit, with  the  unceasing  moil  of  a  galley-slave  —  brought 
me  to  my  sixteenth  year;   a  little  before  which  period 

I  first  committed  the  sin  of  rhyme My  passions, 

when  once  lighted  up,  raged  like  so  many  devils,  till  they 
got  vent  in  rhyme  ;  and  then  the  conning  over  my  verses, 
like  a  spell,  soothed  all  into  quiet." 

Edmund  Kean's  early  life  was  very  wretched.  It  was 
after  his  marriage  that  we  find  him  "  strolling  in  the  old 
misery,  giving  an  entertainment  at  Dumfries  to  pay  his 
lodging.  One  six-penny  auditor  alone  came."  (Once,  we 
are  told,  he  absented  himself  from  his  home  in  Exeter 
for  three  days.  To  the  question  of  where  he  had  been, 
he  replied,  grandiloquently,  "  I  have  been  doing  a  noble 
action;  I  have  been  drinking  these  three  days  with  a 
brother  actor  who  is  leaving  Exeter,  to  keep  up  his  spir- 
its.") After  rehearsal,  and  before  his  appearance  at 
Drury  Lane,  he  exclaimed  prophetically,  "  My  God  !  if  I 
succeed  I  shall  go  mad  ! "  Drunk  with  delight,  he  rushed 
home,  and  with  half-frenzied  incoherency  poured  forth  the 
story  of  his  triumph.  "  The  pit  rose  at  me  1 "  he  cried. 
" Mary,  you  shall  ride  in  your  carriage  yet! "  *' Charles," 
lifting  the  child  from  his  bed,  "  shall  go  to  Eton."  Theo 
his  voice  faltered,  and  he  murmured,  "If  Howard  (his 
ecently  deceased  child)  had  but  lived  to  see  it ! " 

Among  the  companions  of  Reynolds,  when  he  was 
studying  his  art  at  Rome,  was  a  fellow-pupil  of  the  name 
of  Astley.    They  made  an  excursion,  with  some  others,  on 


REWARDS.  125 

a  sultry  day,  and  all  except  Astley  took  off  their  coats. 
After  several  taunts  he  was  persuaded  to  do  the  same,  and 
displayed  on  the  back  of  his  waistcoat  a  foaming  water- 
fall. Distress  had  compelled  him  to  patch  his  clothes 
with  one  of  his  own  landscapes.  Henderson,  the  actor, 
after  a  simple  reading  of  a  newspaper,  repeated  such  an 
enormous  portion  of  it  as  seemed  utterly  marvelous.  "  If 
you  had  been  obliged,  like  me,"  he  said,  in  reply  to  the 
surprise  expressed  by  his  auditors,  "to  depend  during 
many  years  for  your  daily  bread  on  getting  words  by  heart, 
you  would  not  be  so  much  astonished  at  habit  having  pro- 
duced the  facility,"  Amyot  was  a  servant  at  college,  and 
studied,  like  Ramus,  by  the  light  of  burning  charcoal  from 
want  of  candles ;  but  his  translations  earned  him  a  mitre 
as  well  as  renown.  Duchatel  rose  from  being  reader  in  a 
printing-office  to  be  grand  almoner  of  France  ;  and  was 
paid  by  the  king  to  talk  to  him  during  his  meals. 

Excellence  is  not  matured  in  a  day,  and  the  cost  of  it 
is  an  old  story.  The  beginning  of  Plato's  Republic  was 
found  in  his  tablets  written  over  and  over  in  a  variety  of 
ways.  It  took  Virgil,  it  is  stated,  three  years  to  compose 
his  ten  short  eclogues  ;  seven  years  to  elaborate  his  Geor- 
gics,  which  comprise  little  more  than  two  thousand  verses  ; 
and  he  employed  more  than  twelve  years  in  polishing  his 
JEneid,  being  even  then  so  dissatisfied  with  it,  that  he 
wished  before  his  death  to  commit  it  to  the  flames. 
Horace  was  equally  indefatigable,  and  there  are  single 
odes  in  his  works  which  must  have  cost  him  months  of 
labor.  Lucretius's  one  poem  represents  the  toil  of  a 
whole  lifetime.  Thucydides  was  twenty  years  writing  his 
history,  which  is  comprised  in  one  octavo  volume.  Gib- 
bon wrote  the  first  chapter  of  his  work  three  times  before 
he  could  please  himself.  Montesquieu,  alluding  in  a  let- 
ter to  one  of  his  works,  says  to  his  correspondent,  '  You 
will  read  it  in  a  few  hours,  but  the  labor  expended  on 
H  has  whitened  my  hair."     Henri  Beyle  transcribed  his 


126  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

History  of  Painting  in  Italy  seventeen  times.  Sainte- 
Beuve  often  spent  a  whole  week  on  two  or  three  octavo 
pages.  Gray  was  so  fastidious  in  polishing  and  perfect- 
ing his  Elegy,  that  he  kept  it  nearly  twenty  years,  touch- 
ing it  up  and  improving  it.  There  is  a  poem  of  ten  lines 
in  Waller's  works,  which  he  himself  informs  us,  took  him 
a  whole  summer  to  put  into  shape.  Malherbe  would  spCil 
half  a  quire  of  paper  in  composing  and  discomposing  and 
recomposing  a  stanza.  It  is  reckoned  that  during  Ihe 
twenty-five  most  prolific  years  of  his  life  he  composed  no 
more  than,  on  the  average,  thirty-three  verses  per  annum. 
There  is  a  good  story  told  of  him,  which  illustrates  amus- 
ingly the  elaborate  care  he  took  with  his  poems.  A  cer- 
tain nobleman  of  his  acquaintance  had  lost  his  wife,  and 
was  anxious  that  Malherbe  should  dedicate  an  ode  to  her 
memory,  and  condole  with  him  in  verse  on  the  loss  he 
had  sustained.  Malherbe  complied,  but  was  so  fastidious 
in  his  composition,  that  it  was  three  years  before  the 
elegy  was  completed.  Just  before  he  sent  it  in,  he  was 
intensely  chagrined  to  find  that  his  noble  friend  had 
solaced  himself  with  a  new  bride,  and  was,  consequently, 
in  no  humor  to  be  pestered  with  an  elegy  on  his  old  one. 
When  dying,  his  confessor,  in  speaking  of  the  happiness 
in  heaven,  expressed  himself  inaccurately.  "  Say  no  more 
about  it,"  said  Malherbe,  "  or  your  style  will  disgust  me 
with  it."  Miss  Austen,  Charlotte  Bronte,  Hume,  and 
Fox,  have  all  recorded  the  trouble  they  took.  Tasso 
was  unwearied  in  correcting ;  so  were  Pope  and  Boileau. 
The  Cambridge  manuscript  of  Milton's  Lycidas  shows 
numerous  erasures  and  interlineations.  Pascal  spent 
twenty  days  in  perfecting  a  single  letter.  The  fables  of 
La  Fontaine  were  copied  and  re-copied  over  and  over 
again.  Alfieri  was  laboriously  painstaking  in  composition. 
We  are  told  that  if  he  approved  of  his  first  sketch  of  a 
piece  —  after  laying  it  by  for  some  time,  nor  approaching 
it  again  until  his  mind  was  free  of  the  subject  —  he  sub- 


REWARDS.  127 

mitted  it  to  what  he  called  "  development  "  —  writing  out 
in  prose  the  indicated  scenes,  with  all  the  force  at  his 
command,  but  without  stopping  to  analyze  a  thought  or 
correct  an  expression.  He  then  proceeded  to  verify  at 
his  leisure  the  prose  he  had  written,  selecting  with  care 
the  ideas  he  thought  best,  and  rejecting  those  which  he 
deemed  unworthy  of  a  place.  Nor  did  he  even  yet  re- 
gard his  work  as  finished,  but  incessantly  polished  it  verse 
by  verse,  and  made  continual  alterations.  Moliere  com- 
posed very  slowly,  although  he  liked  the  contrary  to  be 
understood,  and  many  pieces  supposed  to  have  been  writ- 
ten upon  the  spur  of  a  royal  command,  had  been  prepared 
some  time  previously.  He  said  to  Boileau,  "  I  have  never 
done  anything  with  which  I  am  truly  content."  Sheridan, 
when  urged  by  the  publisher,  Ridgeway,  to  finish  his 
manuscript  of  The  School  for  Scandal,  declared  that  he 
had  been  nineteen  years  endeavoring  to  satisfy  himself 
with  the  style  of  it,  but  had  not  succeeded.  Joubert  had 
a  habit  from  his  twentieth  year  to  his  seventieth,  of  jotting 
down  with  pencil  the  best  issues  of  his  meditation  as  they 
arose  ;  and  out  of  this  chaos  of  notes  was  shaped,  many 
years  after  his  death,  a  full  volume  of  Thoughts,  "  which," 
says  the  translator,  "  from  their  freshness  and  insight, 
their  concise  symmetry  of  exj^ression,  their  pithiness,  their 
variety,  make  a  rich,  enduring  addition  to  the  literature  of 
France,  and  to  all  literature."  Addison  wore  out  the  pa- 
tience of  his  printer ;  frequently,  when  nearly  a  whole 
impression  of  a  Spectator  was  worked  off,  he  would  stop 
the  press  to  insert  a  new  preposition.  Lamb's  most  sport- 
•ve  essays  were  the  result  of  most  intense  labor  ;  he  used 
to  spend  a  week  at  a  time  in  elaborating  a  single  humor- 
ous letter  to  a  friend.  Tennyson  is  reported  to  have 
written  Come  into  the  Garden,  Maud,  more  than  fifty 
times  over  before  it  pleased  him  ;  and  Locksley  Hall,  the , 
first  draught  of  which  was  written  in  two  days,  he  spent 
the  better  part  of  six  weeks,  for  eight  hours  a  day,  in  alter 


128  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

ing  and  polishing.     Dickens,  when  he  intended  to  write 
a  Christmas  story,  shut  himself  up  for  six  weeks,  lived  the 
life  of  a  hermit,  and  came  out  looking  as  haggard  as  a 
murderer.     His  manuscripts  show  that  he  wrote  with  the 
greatest    care,  and   scrupulously  revised   his   writing   in 
order  to   render  each  sentence  as  perfect  as  might  be. 
He  made  his  alterations  so  carefully  that  it  is  difficult  to 
trace  the  words  which  he  had  originally  written.     In  many 
instances  "  the  primary  words  have  been  erased  so  care- 
fully that  it  is  next  to  impossible  to  form  an  idea  of  how 
the   passages   originally   stood."     Balzac,    after   he   had 
thought  out  thoroughly  one  of  his  philosophical  romances, 
and  amassed  his  materials  in  a  most  laborious  manner, 
retired  to  his  study,  and  from  that  time  until  his  book  had 
gone  to  press,  society  saw  him  no  more.     When  he  ap- 
peared again  among  his  friends,  he  looked,  said  his  pub- 
lisher, in  the  popular  phrase,  like  his  own   ghost.     The 
manuscript  was  afterward   altered   and   copied,  when   it 
passed  into  the  hands  of  the  printer,  from  whose  slips  the 
book  was  re-written  for  the  third  time.     Again  it  went 
into  the  hands  of  the  printer,  —  two,  three,  and  sometimes 
four  separate  proofs  being  required  before  the  author's 
leave  could  be  got  to  send  the  perpetually  re-written  book 
to  press  at  last,  and  so  have  done  with  it.     He  was  liter- 
ally the  teiror  of  all  printers  and  editors.     Moore  thought 
it  quick  work  if  he  wrote  seventy  lines  of  Lalla  Rookh  in 
a  week.     Kinglake's  Eothen,  we  are  told,  was  re-written 
five  or  six  times,  and  was  kept  in  the  author's  writing-desk 
almost  as  long  as  Wordsworth   kept  the  White  Doe  of 
Rylstone,  and  kept  like  that  to  be  taken  out  for  review 
and   correction   almost   every  day.     Buffon's  Studies  of 
Nature  cost  him  fifty  years  of  labor,  and  he  re-copied  it 
eighteen  times   before   he  sent  it  to  the  printer.      "He 
9omposed  in  a  singular  manner,  writing   on   large-sized 
paper,  in  which,  as  in  a  ledger,  five  distinct  columns  were 
Tiled.      In   the   first   column   he   wrote   down   the   first 


REWARDS. 


129 


thoughts ;  in  the  second,  he  corrected,  enlarged,  and 
pruned  it ;  and  so  on,  until  he  had  reached  the  fifth  col- 
umn, within  which  he  finally  wrote  the  result  of  his  labor. 
But  even  after  this,  he  would  re-compose  a  sentence  twenty 
times,  and  once  devoted  fourteen  hours  to  finding  the 
proper  word  with  which  to  round  oK  a  period."  John 
Foster  often  spent  hours  on  a  single  sentence.  Ten  years 
elapsed  between  the  first  sketch  of  Goldsmith's  Traveller 
and  its  completion.  The  poet's  habit  was  to  set  down 
his  ideas  in  prose,  and,  when  he  had  turned  them  care- 
fully into  rhyme,  to  continue  retouching  the  lines  with 
infinite  pains  to  give  point  to  the  sentiment  and  polish  to 
the  verse.  La  Rochefoucauld  spent  fifteen  years  in  pre- 
paring his  little  book  of  Maxims,  altering  some  of  them, 
Segrais  says,  nearly  thirty  times.  Rogers  showed  a  friend 
a  note  to  his  Italy,  which,  he  said,  took  him  a  fortnight  to 
write.  It  consists  of  a  very  few  lines.  We  all  know  how 
Sheridan  polished  his  wit  and  finished  his  jokes,  the  same 
surprising  things  being  found  on  different  bits  of  paper, 
differently  expressed.  Not  long  before  his  death  Adam 
Smith  told  Dugald  Stewart  that  he  wrote  with  just  as 
much  difificulty  then  as  when  he  first  began.  The  Benedic- 
tine editor  of  Bossuet's  works  stated  that  his  manuscripts 
were  bleared  over  with  such  numerous  interlineations  that 
they  were  nearly  illegible.  Sterne  was  incessantly  em- 
ployed for  six  months  in  perfecting  one  very  diminutive 
volume.  Herrick  was  a  painstaking  elaborator  :  with 
minute  and  curious  care  he  polished  and  strengthened  his 
work  :  "  his  airy  facility,  his  seemingly  spontaneous  melo- 
dies, as  with  Shelley,  were  earned  by  conscious  labor  ;  per- 
fect freedom  was  begotten  of  perfect  art."  It  seems,  no 
doubt,  to  many  a  reader  of  Macaulay's  History,  as  if  he 
wrote  without  effort,  and  as  if  the  charms  of  his  style 
were  the  gift  of  nature  rather  than  the  product  of  art,  so 
spontaneously  do  they  appear  to  flow  from  his  pen.  It 
was  the  general  opinion  of  his  literary  friends  that  he 
9 


130  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

wrote  with  great  rapidity,  and  made  few  corrections  in  his 
manuscripts.  On  the  contrary,  we  are  told  by  his  nephew 
and  biographer,  that  he  never  allowed  a  sentence  to  pass 
until  it  was  as  good  as  he  could  make  it,  and  would  often 
re-write  paragraphs  and  whole  chapters  that  he  might 
gain  even  a  slight  improvement  in  arrangement  or  expres- 
sion. After  writing  thus  carefully,  he  corrected  again 
remorselessly,  and  his  manuscripts  were  covered  with 
erasures.  He  paid  equal  attention  to  proof-sheets.  "  He 
could  not  rest  until  the  lines  were  level  to  a  hair's  breadth, 
and  the  punctuation  correct  to  a  comma ;  until  every 
paragraph  concluded  with  a  telling  sentence,  and  every 
sentence  floived  like  running  water."  To  Napier,  the  ed- 
itor of  The  Edinburgh  Review,  he  wrote  from  Calcutta: 
"At  last  I  send  you  an  article  of  interminable  length 
about  Lord  Bacon.  I  never  bestowed  so  much  care  on 
anything  that  I  have  written.  There  is  not  a  sentence  in 
the  latter  half  of  the  article  which  has  not  been  repeatedly 
recast."  Carlyle,  Miss  Martineau  says,  erred  on  the  side 
of  fastidiousness.  "  Almost  every  word  was  altered,  and 
revise  followed  revise."  Giardini,  when  asked  how  long 
it  would  take  to  learn  to  play  on  the  violin,  answered, 
"  Twelve  hours  a  day  for  twenty  years  together."  Biilow 
is  reported  to  have  said,  '*  If  I  stop  practice  for  one  day, 
I  notice  it  in  my  playing  ;  if  I  stop  two  days,  my  friends 
notice  it ;  if  I  stop  three  days,  the  public  notices  it." 
Leonardo  da  Vinci  would  walk  the  whole  length  of  Milan 
that  he  might  alter  a  single  tint  in  his  picture  of  the  Last 
Supper.  Titian,  we  are  told,  after  laying  his  foundation 
with  a  few  bold  strokes,  would  .turn  the  picture  to  the 
wall,  and  leave  it  there  perhaps  for  months,  turning  it 
-ound  again  after  a  time  to  look  at  it  carefully,  and  scan 
the  parts  as  he  would  the  face  of  his  greatest  enemy.  If 
at  this  time  any  portion  of  it  should  appear  to  him  to  have 
been  defective,  he  would  set  to  work  to  correct  it,  applying 
remedies  as  a  surgeon  would  apply  them,  cutting  off  ax 


REWARDS.  131 

crescences  here,  superabundant  flesh  there,  redressing  an 
arm,  adjusting  or  setting  a  limb,  regardless  of  the  pain 
which  it  might  cause.  In  this  way  he  would  reduce  the 
whole  to  a  certain  symmetry,  put  it  aside,  and  return  again 
a  third  or  more  times  till  the  first  quintessence  had  been 
covered  over  with  its  padding  of  flesh.  Then  came  the 
finishing,  which  was  done  at  as  many  more  different  paint- 
ings, to  say  nothing  of  the  innumerable  last  touches  — 
with  his  fingers  as  well  as  with  his  brush  —  of  which  he  is 
said  to  have  been  particularly  fond.  It  is  a  received 
opinion  that  Edmund  Kean's  acting  was  wholly  sponta- 
neous and  unstudied;  this  is  a  mistake.  A  contemporary, 
writing  of  his  earlier  professional  life,  says,  "  He  used  to 
mope  about  for  hours,  walking  miles  and  miles  alone  with 
his  hands  in  his  pockets,  thinking  intensely  on  his  charac- 
ters. No  one  could  get  a  word  from  him ;  he  studied  and 
slaved  beyond  any  actor  I  ever  knew."  Neither  did  he 
relax  his  labors  when  he  had  reached  the  highest  pinnacle 
of  fame.  It  is  related  of  him,  that  when  studying  Maturin's 
Bertram,  he  shut  himself  up  for  two  days  to  study  the  one 
line,  "  Bertram  has  kissed  the  child  !  "  It  made  one  of 
those  electrical  effects  which  from  their  vividness  were 
supposed  to  be  merely  impulsive.  His  wife  said  her  hus- 
band would  often  stand  up  all  night  before  a  pier  glass 
in  his  chamber,  endeavoring  to  acquire  the  right  facial 
expression  for  some  new  part.  John  Kemble's  new  read- 
ings of  Hamlet  were  many  and  strange,  and  excited  much 
comment.  "  The  performance  was  eminently  graceful, 
calm,  deep  studied  —  during  his  life  he  wrote  out  the  en- 
tire part  forty  times  —  but  cold  and  unsympathetic."  As 
to  orators,  the  greatest  of  antiquity  were  not  ashamed  to 
confess  the  industry  of  the  closet.  Demosthenes  gloried 
in  the  smell  of  the  lamp  ;  and  it  is  recorded  of  Cicero, 
that  he  not  only  so  laboriously  prepared  his  speeches, 
but  even  so  minutely  studied  the  effect  of  their  deliver)', 
\hat  on  one  occasion,  when  he  had  to  oppose  Hortensius. 


132  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

the  reiterated  rehearsals  of  the  night  before  so  diminished 
his  strength  as  almost  to  incapacitate  him  in  the  morning. 
Lord  Erskine  corrected  and  corrected  his  very  eloquent 
orations,  and  Burke  literally  worried  his  printer  into  a 
complaint  against  the  fatigue  of  his  continual  revises. 
Indeed,  it  is  said,  such  was  the  fastidiousness  of  his  in- 
dustry, that  the  proof-sheet  not  unfrequently  exhibited  a 
complete  erasure  of  the  original  manuscript.  Whitefield's 
eloquence  was  a  natural  gift  improved  by  diligent  study ; 
and  Garrick  said  that  each  repetition  of  the  same  sermon 
showed  a  constant  improvement,  —  as  many  as  forty 
repetitions  being  required  before  the  discourse  reached 
its  full  perfection.  "  I  composed,"  says  Lord  Brougham, 
"  the  peroration  of  my  speech  for  the  queen,  in  the  Lords, 
after  reading  and  repeating  Demosthenes  for  three  or 
four  weeks,  and  I  composed  it  twenty  times  over  at  least, 
and  it  certainly  succeeded  in  a  very  extraordinary  degree, 
and  far  above  any  merits  of  its  own."  He  says  that  Ers- 
kine wrote  down  word  for  word  the  passage  about  the 
savage  and  his  bundle  of  sticks.  His  mind  having  ac- 
quired a  certain  excitement  and  elevation,  and  received 
an  impetus  from  the  tone  and  quality  of  the  matured  and 
premeditated  composition,  retained  that  impetus,  after 
the  impelling  cause  had  died  away.  Webster,  it  is  said, 
was  in  the  habit  of  writing  and  re-writing  most  of  the 
fine  passages  of  his  senatorial  and  forensic  speeches,  and 
sometimes  prepared  them,  in  order  that  they  might  after 
ward  be  introduced  when  occasion  should  offer.  He  wj  s 
wont  to  say  that  the  following  passage  in  his  speech  upon 
President  Jackson's  protest,  in  May,  1834,  had  been 
changed  by  him  twelve  times,  before  he  reduced  it  to  a 
shape  that  entirely  met  his  approval.  Perhaps  i"  is  not 
surpassed,  for  poetical  beauty,  by  anything  that  ever  fell 
from  his  eloquent  lips.  Speaking  of  resistance  by  the 
United  States  of  the  aggressions  of  Great  Britain,  he  said  : 
They  raised  their  flag  against  a  power,  to  \\  lich,  for  the 


REWARDS.  133 

purposes  of  foreign  conquest  and  subjugation,  Rome,  in 
the  height  of  her  glory,  is  not  to  be  compared.  A  power 
which  has  dotted  over  the  surface  of  the  whole  globe 
with  her  possessions  and  military  posts  —  whose  morning 
drum-beat  following  the  sun,  and  keeping  company  with 
the  hours,  circles  the  earth  daily  with  one  continuous  and 
unbroken  strain  of  the  martial  airs  of  England." 

As  to  compensation,  it, is  stated  that  Goethe's  works 
were  not  in  his  own  time  commercially  successful.     After 
his  return  from  Italy,  the  edition  of  his  collected  works, 
which  he  had  compared  and  revised  with  labor  and  with 
care,  sold,  as  his  publisher  complained,  only  "very  slowly." 
Coleridge  gained  little  or  no  money  by  his  writings.     He 
says,    "  I  question  whether  there  ever  existed  a  man  of 
letters   so  utterly  friendless,  or  so  unconnected  as  I  am 
with  the  dispensers  of  contemporary   reputation,  or  the 
publishers  in  whose  service  they  labor."     When  Newton 
lectured,  a  Lucasian  professor,  "  so  few  went  to  hear  him, 
that  ofttimes  he  dicJ,  in  a  manner,  for  want  of  hearers,  read 
to  the  walls."     The  Paradise  Lost  had  a  very  limited  sale, 
till,  fifty  years  after  its  publication,  it  was   brought  into 
light  by  the  criticisms  of  Addison.     Campbell  for  years 
could  not  find  a  bookseller  who  would  buy  The  Pleasures 
of  Hope.     In  the  first  thirteen  years  after  the  publication 
of  Boswell's  Life  of   Johnson,  less   than   four  thousand 
copies  were  sold.     There  were   only  forty-five  copies  of 
Hume's  History  sold  in  the  first  twelvemonth.     Twelve 
years  elapsed  before  the  first  five  hundred  copies  of  Em- 
erson's Nature  were  purchased  by  the  public.     Washing- 
ton Irving  was  nearly  seventy  years  old  before  the  sale  of 
his  works  at  home  met  the  expenses  of  his  simple  life 
at   Sunnyside.     It  has  been  related  that  while  Madame 
Titiens  was  receiving  an  ovation  for  her  singing  of  Kath- 
leen Mavourneen,  the  author  of  the  song  sat  weeping  in 
the  audience,  the  poorest  and   obscurest   man   present 
Willis,   breakfasting   at  the   Temple   with  a  friend,  met 


134  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

Charles  and  Mary  Lamb.  He  mentioned  having  bought 
a  copy  of  Ella  the  last  day  he  was  in  America,  to  send  as 
a  parting  gift  to  one  of  the  most  lovely  and  talented 
women  in  his  country.  "  What  did  you  give  for  it  ?  "  said 
Lamb.  "  About  seven  and  six-pence."  "  Permit  me  to 
pay  you  that,"  said  he ;  and  with  the  utmost  earnestness 
he  counted  out  the  money  upon  the  table.  "  I  never  yet 
wrote  anything  that  would  seU,"  he  continued.  "  I  am 
the  publishers'  ruin." 

Fortune,  it  has  been  truly  said,  has  rarely  condescended 
to  be  the  companion  of  genius  ;  others  find  a  hundred  by- 
roads to  her  palace ;  there  is  but  one  open,  and  that  a 
very  indifferent  one,  for  men  of  letters.     Cervantes,  the 
immortal   genius  of  Spain,  is  supposed  to  have  wanted 
bread  ;   Le  Sage  was  a  victim   of   poverty  all   his   life ; 
Camoens,  the  solitary  pride  of  Portugal,  deprived  of  the 
necessaries  of  life,  perished  in  a  hospital  at  Lisbon.     The 
Portuguese,  after  his  death,  bestowed  on  the  man  of  genius 
they  had  starved  the  appellation  of  Great.     Vondel,  the 
Dutch  Shakespeare,  to  whom  Milton  was  greatly  indebted, 
after  composing  a  number  of  popular  tragedies,  lived  in 
great  poverty,  and  died  at  ninety  years  of  age ;  then  he 
had  his  coffin  carried  by  fourteen  poets,  who,  without  his 
genius,  probably  partook  of  his  wretchedness.     The  great 
Tasso  was  reduced  to  such  a  dilemma  that  he  was  obliged 
to  borrow  a  crown  from  a  friend  to  subsist  through  the 
week.     He  alludes  to  his  dress  in  a  pretty  sonnet,  which 
he  addresses  to  his  cat,  entreating  her  to  assist  him,  dur- 
ing the  night,  with  the  lustre  of  her  eyes,  having  no  can- 
dle to  see  to  write  his  verses.     One  day  Louis  the  Four- 
teenth asked  Racine  what  there  was  new  in  the  literary 
world.     The  poet  answered  that  he  had  seen  a  melan- 
choly spectacle  in  the  house  of  Corneille,  whom  he  found 
dying,  deprived  even  of  a  little  broth.     Spenser,  the  child 
of  Fancy,  languished  out  his  life  in  misery.     Lord  Bur- 
leigh, it  is  said,  prevented  the  queen  giving  him  a  hun- 


REWARDS.  135 

dred  pounds,  thinking  the  lowest  clerk  in  his  office  a  more 
deserving  person.  Sydenham,  who  devoted  his  life  to  a 
laborious  version  of  Plato,  died  in  a  miserable  spunging- 
house.  "  You,"  said  Goldsmith  to  Bob  Bryanton,  "  seem 
placed  at  the  centre  of  fortune's  wheel,  and,  let  it  re- 
volve ever  so  fast,  are  insensible  to  the  motion.  I  seem 
to  have  been  tied  to  the  circumference,  and  whirled  dis- 
agreeably round,  as  if  on  a  whirligig Oh  gods  ! 

gods !  here  in  a  garret,  writing  for  bread,  and  expecting 
to  be  dunned  for  a  milk-score."     To  another,  about  the 
same  time,  he  wrote,  "  I  have  been  some  years  struggling 
with  a  wretched  being  —  with  all  that  contempt  that  in- 
digence brings  with  it  —  with  all  those  passions  which 
make  contempt  insupportable.     What,   then,   has  a  jail 
that  is  formidable  ?      I   shall   at  least  have  the  society 
of  wretches,  and  such  is  to  me  true  society."     Cervantes 
planned  and  commenced  Don  Quixote  in  prison.     John 
Bunyan  wrote  the  first  part,  at  least,  of  Pilgrim's  Prog- 
ress in  jail.     Both  of  these  immortal  works  are  the  de- 
light and  solace  of  reading  people  wherever  there  is  a 
literature.    The  latter  is  said  to  have  been  translated  into 
a  greater  number  of  languages  than   any  other  book  in 
the  world,  with  two  exceptions,  the  Bible  and  the  Imita- 
tion of  Christ.     Sir  James  Harrington,  author  of  Oceana, 
on  pretense  of  treasonable  practices,  was  put  into  con- 
finement, which  lasted  until  he  became  deranged,  when 
he  was  liberated.     Sir  Roger  L'Estrange  was  tried  and 
condemned  to  death,  and  lay  in  prison  nearly  four  years ; 
constantly  expecting  to  be  led  forth  to  execution.     Ben 
Jonson,  John  Selden,  Jeremy  Taylor,  and  Edmund  Waller 
were  imprisoned.     Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  during  his  twelve 
years'  imprisonment,  wrote  his  best  poems  and  his  His- 
tory of  the  World,  a  w-ork  accounted  vastly  superior  to 
all  the  P^nglish  historical  productions  which  had  previous- 
ly appeared.     "Written,"  says  the  historian  Tytler,  "in 
prison,  during  the  quiet  evening  of  a  tempestuous  life,  we 


136  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

feel,  in  its  perusal,  that  we  are  the  companions  of  a  su- 
perior mind,  nursed  in  contemplation  and  chastened  and 
improved  by  sorrow,  in  which  the  bitter  recollection  of 
injury  and  the  asperity  of  resentment  have  passed  away, 
leaving  only  the  heavenly  lesson,  that  all  is  vanity."  Old 
George  Wither  wrote  his  Shepherd's  Hunting  during  his 
first  imprisonment.  The  superiority  of  intellectual  pur- 
suits over  the  gratification  of  sense  and  all  the  malice  of 
fortune,  has  never  been  more  touchingly  or  finely  illus- 
trated, it  has  been  well  said,  than  in  this  poem. 

"Can  anything  be  so  elegant,"  asks  Emerson,  "as  to 
have  few  wants  and  serve  them  one's  self  ?  It  is  more 
elegant  to  answer  one's  own  needs  than  to  be  richly 
served ;  inelegant  perhaps  it  may  look  to-day,  and  to  a 

few,    but   it   is   an    elegance   forever  and   to    all 

Parched  corn,  and  a  house  with  one  apartment,  that  I  may 
be  free  of  all  perturbations,  that  I  may  be  serene  and 
docile  to  what  the  mind  shall  speak,  and  girt  and 
road-ready  for  the  lowest  mission  of  knowledge  or  good- 
will, is  frugality  for  gods  and  heroes."  Said  Confu- 
cius, "  With  coarse  rice  to  eat,  with  water  to  drink,  and 
my  bended  arm  for  a  pillow, — I  have  still  joy  in  the 
midst  of  these  things."  "  For  my  own  private  satisfac- 
tion," said  Bishop  Berkeley,  "  I  had  rather  be  master  of 
my  own  time  than  wear  a  diadem."  "  I  would  rather," 
said  Thoreau,  "  sit  on  a  pumpkin  and  have  it  all  to  my- 
self, than  to  be  crowded  on  a  velvet  cushion If 

you  have  any  enterprise  before  you,  try  it  in  your  old 
clothes.  All  men  want,  not  something  to  do  with,  but 
something  to  do,  or  rather  something  to  be.  Perhaps  we 
should  never  procure  a  new  suit,  however  ragged  or  dirty 
the  old,  until  we  have  so  conducted,  so  enterprised  or 
sailed  in  some  way,  that  we  feel  like  new  men  in  the  old, 
and  that  to  retain  it  would  be  like  keeping  new  wine  in 
old  bottles.  Our  moulting  season,  like  that  of  fowls, 
must  be  a  crisis  in  our  lives.     The  loon  retires  to  solitary 


REWARDS.  137 

ponds  to  spend  it.  Thus  also  the  snake  casts  its  slough, 
and  the  caterpillar  its  wormy  coat,  by  an  internal  industry 
and  expansion  ;  for  clothes  are  but  our  outmost  cuticle 

and  mortal  coil It  is  desirable  that  a  man  be  clad 

so  simply  that  he  can  lay  his  hands  on  himself  in  the 
dark,  and  that  he  live  in  all  respects  so  compactly  and 
preparedly,  that,  if  an  enemy  take  the  town,  he  can^  like 
the  old  philosopher,  walk  out  the  gate  empty-handed 
without  anxiety." 

"  You  see  in  my  chamber,"  said  Goethe,  near  the  close 
of  his  life,  "  no  sofa  ;  I  sit  always  in  my  old  wooden 
cha.r,  and  never,  till  a  few  weeks  ago,  have  permitted 
even  a  leaning  place  for  my  head  to  be  added.  If  sur- 
rounded by  tasteful  furniture,  my  thoughts  are  arrested, 
and  I  am  placed  in  an  agreeable,  but  passive  state.  Un- 
less we  are  accustomed  to  them  from  early  youth,  splen- 
did chambers  and  elegant  furniture  had  best  be  left  to 
people  who  neither  have  nor  can  have  any  thoughts." 

Rogers,  the  banker  poet,  once  said  to  Wordsworth,  "  If 
you  would  let  me  edit  your  poems,  and  give  me  leave  to 
omit  some  half-dozen,  and  make  a  few  trifling  alterations, 
I  would  engage  that  you  should  be  as  popular  a  poet  as 
any  living."  Wordsworth's  answer  is  said  to  have  been, 
"  I  am  much  obliged  to  you,  Mr.  Rogers  ;  I  am  a  poor 
man,  but  I  would  rather  remain  as  I  am." 

Thomson  solicited  Burns  to  supply  him  with  twenty  or 
thirty  songs  for  the  musical  work  in  which  he  was  en- 
gaged, with  an  understanding  distinctly  specified,  that 
the  bard  should  receive  a  regular  pecuniary  remuneration 
for  his  contributions.  With  the  first  part  of  the  proposal 
Burns  instantly  complied,  but  peremptorily  rejected  the 
last.  "  A.S  to  any  remuneration,  you  may  think  my  songs 
either  above  or  below  price  ;  for  they  shall  absolutely  be 
the  one  or  the  other.  In  the  honest  enthusiasm  with 
which  I  embark  in  your  undertaking,  to  talk  of  money, 
wages,  fee,  hire,  etc.,  would  be  downright  prostitution  0/ 


138  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

soul."  Thomson,  some  time  after,  notwithstanding  the 
prohibition,  ventured  to  acknowledge  his  services  by  a 
small  pecuniary  present,  which  the  poet  with  some  diffi- 
culty restrained  himself  from  returning.  "  I  assure  you, 
my  dear  sir,"  he  wrote  to  the  donor,  "  that  you  truly  hurt 
me  with  your  pecuniary  parcel.  It  degrades  me  in  my 
own  eyes.  However,  to  return  it  would  savoi  of  affecta- 
tion ;  but  as  to  any  more  traffic  of  that  debtor  and 
creditor  kind,  I  swear  by  that  honor  which  crowns  the 
upright  statue  of  Robert  Burns'  integrity  —  on  the  least 
motion  of  it,  I  will  indignantly  spurn  the  by-past  transac- 
tion, and  from  that  moment  commence  entire  stranger  to 
you  !  Burns'  character  for  generosity  of  sentiment  and 
independence  of  mind  will,  I  trust,  long  outlive  any  of 
his  wants  which  the  cold,  unfeeling  ore  can  supply ;  at 
least,  I  will  take  care  that  such  a  character  he  shall  de- 
serve." His  sensitive  nature  inclined  him  to  reject  the 
present,  as  proud  old  Sam  Johnson  threw  away  with  in- 
dignation the  new  shoes  which  had  been  placed  at  his 
chamber  door.  "  I  ought  not,"  says  Emerson,  "  to  allow 
any  man,  because  he  has  broad  lands,  to  feel  that  he  is 
rich  in  my  presence.  I  ought  to  make  him  feel  that  I  can 
do  without  his  riches,  that  I  cannot  be  bought,  —  neither 
by  comfort,  neither  by  pride,  —  and  though  I  be  utterly 
penniless,  and  receiving  bread  from  him,  that  he  is  the 
poor  man  beside  me." 

Isaac  Disraeli,  when  a  young  man,  was  informed  that  a 
place  in  the  establishment  of  a  great  merchant  was  pre- 
pared for  him  ;  he  replied  that  he  had  written  and  in- 
tended to  publish  a  poem  of  considerable  length  against 
commerce,  which  was  the  corrupter  of  man;  and  he  at 
once  inclosed  his  poem  to  Dr.  Johnson,  who,  however, 
was  in  his  last  illness,  and  was  unable  to  read  it.  Cole- 
ridge, on  being  ofifered  a  half  share  in  the  Morning  Post 
and  Courier,  with  a  prospect  of  two  thousand  pounds  a 
year,  announced  that  he  would  not  give  up  country  life, 


REWARDS.  139 

and  the  lazy  reading  of  old  folios,  for  two  thousand  times 
that  income.  "  In  short,"  he  added,  "  beyond  three  hun- 
dred and  fifty  pounds  a  year,  I  regard  money  as  a  real 
evil."  Professor  Agassiz,  when  once  invited  to  lecture, 
replied  to  the  munificent  lecture  association  that  he  was 
very  sorry,  but  he  was  just  then  busy  with  some  re- 
searches that  left  him  no  time  to  make  money.  There  is 
a  familiar  story  told  of  Marvell,  who  is  said  to  have  so 
greatly  pleased  Charles  II.  at  a  private  interview,  by  his 
wit  and  agreeable  conversation,  that  the  latter  dispatched 
the  lord  treasurer  Danby  to  offer  him  a  thousand  pounds, 
with  a  promise  of  a  lucrative  place  at  court,  which  Mar- 
vell refused,  notwithstanding  he  was  immediately  after- 
ward compelled  to  borrow  a  guinea  of  a  friend.  Just  at 
the  time  when  the  English  mind  was  agitated  upon  the 
subject  of  American  taxation,  and  Goldsmith  was  most 
needy,  an  effort  was  made  to  bring  him  into  the  minis- 
terial ranks.  Dr.  Scott  was  sent  to  negotiate  with  the 
poet.  "I  found  him,"  said  Scott,  "in  a  miserable  suite  of 
chambers  in  the  Temple.  I  told  him  my  authority  :  I  told 
him  I  was  empowered  to  pay  most  liberally  for  his.  exer- 
tions ;  and,  would  you  believe  it !  he  was  so  absurd  as  to 
say,  '  I  can  earn  as  much  as  will  supply  my  wants  without 
writing  for  any  party ;  the  assistance  you  offer  is  there- 
fore unnecessary  to  me ; '  and  so  I  left  him  in  his  gar- 
ret ! "  Sir  John  Hawkins  one  day  met  Goldsmith ;  his 
lordship  told  him  he  had  read  his  poem.  The  Traveller, 
and  was  much  delighted  with  it ;  that  he  was  going  lord 
lieutenant  to  Ireland,  and  that  hearing  that  he  was  a  na- 
tive of  that  country,  he  should  be  glad  to  do  him  any 
kindness.  The  honest  poor  man  and  sincere  lover  of 
literature  replied  that  he  "  had  a  brother  there,  a  clergy- 
man, that  stood  in  need  of  help.  As  for  myself,  I  have 
no  dependence  upon  the  promises  of  great  men  ;  I  look 
to  the  booksellers  for  support ;  they  are  my  best  friends, 
and  I  am  not  inclined  to  forsake  them  for  others."     For 


140  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

this  frank  expression  of  magnanimity  and  manly  self- 
dependence,  the  pricked  Hawkins,  and  the  envious  Bos- 
well,  speaking  of  the  incident  afterward,  called  Goldsmith 
an  "idiot."  Some  of  Walter  Scott's  friends  offered  him, 
or  rather  proposed  to  offer  him,  enough  of  money,  as  was 
supposed,  to  enable  him  to  arrange  with  his  creditors. 
He  paused  for  a  moment ;  and  then  recollecting  his 
powers,  said  proudly,  "  No  !  this  right  hand  shall  work 
it  all  off !  "  Lady  Blessington  said  to  Willis,  Disraeli 
and  Dr.  Beattie  being  present :  "  Moore  went  to  Jamaica 
with  a  profitable  appointment.  The  climate  disagreed 
with  him,  and  he  returned  home,  leaving  the  business  in 
the  hands  of  a  confidential  clerk,  who  embezzled  eight 
thousand  pounds  in  the  course  of  a  few  months  and  ab- 
sconded. Moore's  misfortunes  awakened  a  great  sympa- 
thy among  his  friends.  Lord  Lansdowne  was  the  first  to 
offer  his  aid.  He  wrote  to  Moore,  that  for  many  years 
he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  laying  aside  from  his  income 
eight  thousand  pounds,  for  the  encouragement  of  the  arts 
and  literature,  and  that  he  should  feel  that  it  was  well 
disposed  of  for  that  year  if  Moore  would  accept  it,  to  free 
him  from  his  difficulties.  It  was  offered  in  the  most  del- 
icate and  noble  manner,  but  Moore  declined  it.  The 
members  of  '  White's '  (mostly  noblemen)  called  a  meet- 
ing, and  (not  knowing  the  amount  of  the  deficit)  sub- 
scribed in  one  morning  twenty-five  thousand  pounds,  and 
wrote  to  the  poet  that  they  would  cover  the  sum,  what- 
ever it  might  be.  This  was  declined,  Longman  and 
Murray  then  offered  to  pay  it,  and  wait  for  their  remu- 
neration from  his  works.  He  declined  even  this,  and 
went  to  Passy  with  his  family,  where  he  economized  and 
worked  hard  till  it  was  canceled.  At  one  time  two  dif- 
ferent counties  of  Ireland  sent  committees  to  him,  to  offer 
him  a  seat  in  Parliament;  and  as  he  depended  on  his 
writings  for  a  subsistence,  oft'ering  him  at  the  same  time 
twelve  hundred  pounds  a  year  while  he  continued  to  rep* 


REWARDS.  141 

resent  ihem.  Moore  was  deeply  touched  with  it,  and 
said  no  circumstance  of  his  Hfe  had  ever  gratified  him  so 
much.  He  admitted  that  the  honor  they  proposed  him 
had  been  his  most  cherished  ambition,  but  the  necessity 
of  receiving  a  pecuniary  support  at  the  same  time  was  an 
insuperable  obstacle.  He  could  never  enter  Parliament 
with  his  hands  tied,  and  his  opinions  and  speech  fettered, 
as  they  would  be  irresistibly  in  such  circumstances." 
Southey  was  offered  by  Walter  the  editorship  of  The 
Times,  but  declined  it,  saying,  "  No  emolument,  however 
great,  would  induce  me  to  give  up  a  country  life,  and 
those  pursuits  in  literature  to  which  the  studies  of  so 
many  years  have  been  directed."  "  Will  you  be  created 
a  count  ?  a  title  is  sometimes  useful,"  said  Louis  Philippe 
to  M.  Guizot.  The  proffered  honor  was  declined,  and 
the  king  replied,  "  You  are  right  ;  your  name  alone  is 
sufficient,  and  is  a  higher  dignity."  D'AIembert,  when 
in  receipt  of  but  a  limited  income,  —  more  than  half  of 
which  he  gave  away  in  charity,  —  declined  an  invitation  of 
Frederick  the  Great  to  reside  at  the  court  of  Berlin.  The 
Empress  Catherine  offered  him  the  post  of  tutor  or  gov- 
ernor to  the  czarowitch,  with  an  income  of  one  hundred 
thousand  livres,  and  on  his  refusal  wrote  :  "  I  know  that 
your  refusal  arises  from  your  desire  to  cultivate  your 
studies  and  your  friendships  in  quiet.  But  this  is  of  no 
consequence ;  bring  all  your  friends  with  you,  and  I 
promise  you,  that  both  you  and  they  shall  have  every 
accommodation  in  my  power."  Still  he  refused ;  the 
"powers  and  potentialities  of  the  courts  and  royalty"  be- 
ing insufficient  to  seduce  his  independence.  B^ranger, 
the  "French  Burns,"  the  poet  of  the  people,  from  1820 
tc  the  end  of  his  life  called  "  the  real  monarch  of  France," 
had  the  same  proud  spirit  of  independence.  General 
Sebastiani,  then  minister  of  war,  and  dangerously  ill, 
received  one  day  a  visit  from  Bdranger.  "  Ah  !  my  dear 
friend,"  said  the  old  soldier  to  the  poet,  "  I  am  very  ill 


142  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

Come,  my  dear  Beranger,  we  must  do  something  for  oul 
friends.  I  declare  to  you  that  I  shall  not  die  quietly  if  I 
leave  you  in  poverty  behind  me.  Madame  de  Praslin  has 
a  fortune  of  her  own ;  therefore  it  will  not  be  doing  any 
injustice  to  my  children.  Listen  ;  I  have  there  in  my 
bureau  a  few  small  savings,  about  two  hundred  thousand 
francs ;  let  us  divide  them.  It  is  an  old  friend,  an  old 
soldier,  who  offers  you  this  ;  and  I  swear,  on  my  cross  of 
honor,  that  no  one  shall  know  the  pleasure  you  will  have 
done  me  in  accepting  the  small  present."  The  poet  re- 
fused. Spinoza,  at  one  time,  we  are  informed,  did  not 
spend  six  sous  a  day,  on  an  average,  and  did  not  drink 
more  than  a  pint  of  wine  in  a  month.  "  Nature  is  satis- 
fied with  little,"  he  used  to  say,  "  and  when  she  is  con- 
tent, I  am  so  too."  A  good  friend  brought  him  one  day 
a  present  of  two  thousand  florins.  The  philosopher,  "  in 
the  presence  of  his  host,  civilly  excused  himself  from 
accepting  the  money,  saying  that  he  was  in  need  of  noth- 
ing, and  that  the  possession  of  so  much  money  would 
only  serve  to  distract  him  from  his  studies  and  occupa- 
tions." 

Dr.  Johnson  contracted  an  inveterate  dislike  to  sus- 
tained intellectual  exertion,  and  wondered  how  any  one 
could  write  except  for  money,  and  never,  or  very  rarely, 
wrote  from  any  more  elevated  impulse  than  the  stern 
pressure  of  want.  "  Who  will  say,"  says  Richard  Cum- 
berland, "  that  Johnson  himself  would  have  been  such  a 
champion  in  literature,  such  a  front-rank  soldier  in  the 
fields  of  fame,  if  he  had  not  been  pressed  into  the  service, 
and  driven  on  to  gloiy  with  the  bayonet  of  sharp  ne- 
cessity pointed  at  his  back  ?  If  fortune  had  turned  him 
into  a  field  of  clover,  he  would  have  lain  down  and  rolled 
in  it.  The  mere  manual  labor  of  writing  would  not  have 
allowed  his  lassitude  and  love  of  ease  to  have  taken 
the  pen  out  of  the  inkhorn,  unless  the  cravings  of  hun- 
ger had  reminded  him  that  he  must  fill  the  sheet  before 


REWARDS.  143 

he   saw   the  table-cloth He   would  have  put  up 

prayers  for  early  rising,  and  lain  in  bed  all  day,  and  with 
the  most  active  resolutions  possible,  been  the  most  in- 
dolent mortal  living I  have  heard  that  illustrious 

scholar  assert  that  he  subsisted  himself  for  a  considerable 
space  of  time  upon  the  scanty  pittance  of  four-pence 
half-penny  per  day.  How  melancholy  to  reflect  that  his 
vast  trunk  and  stimulating  appetite  were  to  be  supported 
by  W'hat  will  barely  feed  the  weaned  infant !  "  No  won- 
der he  so  often  screened  himself  when  he  ate,  or,  later  in 
life,  lost  his  temper  with  Mrs.  Thrale  when  she  made  a 
jest  of  hunger ! 

It  is  related  that  soon  after  the  publication  of  the  Life 
of  Savage,  which  was  anonymous,  Mr.  Walter  Harte,  din- 
ing with  Mr.  Cave,  the  proprietor  of  The  Gentleman's 
Magazine,  at  St.  John's  Gate,  took  occasion  to  speak  very 
handsomely  of  the  work.  The  next  time  Cave  met  Harte, 
he  told  him  that  he  had  made  a  man  happy  the  other  day 
at  his  home,  by  the  encomiums  he  bestowed  on  Savage's 
Life.  "  How  could  that  be  ?  "  said  Harte  ;  "  none  were 
present  but  you  and  I."  Cave  replied,  "  You  might  ob- 
serve I  sent  a  plate  of  victuals  behind  the  screen.  There 
skulked  the  biographer,  one  Johnson,  whose  dress  was  so 
shabby  that  he  durst  not  make  his  appearance.  He  over- 
heard our  conversation  ;  and  your  applauding  his  perform- 
ance delighted  him  exceedingly." 

"  Man,"  said  Goethe,  "  recognizes  and  praises  only  that 
which  he  himself  is  capable  of  doing ;  and  those  who  by 
nature  are  mediocre  have  the  trick  of  depreciating  pro- 
ductions which,  if  they  have  faults,  have  also  good  points, 
so  as  to  elevate  the  mediocre  productions  which  they  are 
fitted  to  praise."  "While  it  is  so  undesirable  that  any 
man  should  receive  what  he  has  not  examined,  a  far  more 
frequent  danger  is  that  of  flippant  irreverence.  Not  all 
the  heavens  contain  is  obvious  to  the  unassisted  eye  of 
the  careless  spectator.     Few  men  are  great,  almost  as  few 


144  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

able  to  appreciate  greatness.  The  critics  have  written 
little  upon  the  Iliad  in  all  these  ages  which  Alexander 
would  have  thought  worth  keeping  with  it  in  his  golden 
box.  Nor  Shakespeare,  nor  Dante,  nor  Calderon,  have 
as  yet  found  a  sufficient  critic,  though  Coleridge  and  the 
Schlegels  have  lived  since  they  did.  Meantime,"  con- 
tinues Margaret  Fuller,  "it  is  safer  to  take  ofE  the  hat 
and  shout  vivat !  to  the  conqueror,  who  may  become  a 
permanent  sovereign,  than  to  throw  stones  and  mud  from 
the  gutter.  The  star  shines,  and  that  it  is  with  no  bor- 
rowed light,  his  foes  are  his  voucher.  And  every  planet 
is  a  portent  to  the  world ;  but  whether  for  good  or  ill, 
only  he  can  know  who  has  science  for  many  calculations. 
Not  he  who  runs  can  read  these  books,  or  any  books  of 
any  worth." 

Homer  was  called  a  plagiarist  by  some  of  the  earlier 
critics,  and  was  accused  of  having  stolen  from  older  poets 
all  that  was  remarkable  in  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey.  Sopho- 
cles was  brought  to  trial  by  his  children  as  a  lunatic. 
Socrates,  considered  as  the  wisest  and  the  most  moral  of 
men,  Cicero  treated  as  an  usurer,  and  Athenaeus  as  illit- 
erate. Plato  was  accused  of  envy,  lying,  avarice,  rob- 
bery, incontinence,  and  impiety.  Some  of  the  old  writers 
wrote  to  prove  Aristotle  vain,  ambitious,  and  ignorant. 
Plato  is  said  to  have  preferred  the  burning  of  all  of  the 
works  of  Democritus.  Pliny  and  Seneca  thought  Virgil 
destitute  of  invention,  and  Quintilian  was  alike  severe 
upon  Seneca,  It  was  a  long  time,  says  Seneca,  that 
Democritus  was  taken  for  a  madman,  and  before  Soc- 
rates had  any  esteem  in  the  world.  How  long  was  it 
before  Cato  could  be  understood  ?  Nay,  he  was  affronted, 
contemned,  and  rejected  ;  and  people  never  knew  the 
value  of  hin\  until  they  had  lost  him.  *'  The  Northerc 
Highlanders,"  said  Wilson,  "  do  not  admire  Waverley,  so 
I  presume  the  Southern  Highlanders  despise  Guy  Man- 
nering.     The  Westmoreland  peasants  think  Wordsworth 


REWARDS.  145 

a  fool.  In  Borrowdale,  Southey  is  not  known  to  exist. 
I  met  ten  men  at  Hawick  who  did  not  think  Hogg  a  poet, 
and  the  whole  city  of  Glasgow  think  me  a  madman.  So 
much  for  the  voice  of  the  people  being  the  voice  of  God." 
Goldsmith  tells  us,  speaking  of  Waller's  Ode  on  the 
Death  of  Cromwell,  that  English  poetry  was  not  then 
"  quite  harmonized  :  so  that  this,  which  would  now  be 
looked  upon  as  a  slovenly  sort  of  versification,  was  in  the 
times  in  which  it  was  written  almost  a  prodigy  of  har- 
mony." At  the  same  time,  after  praising  the  harmony  of 
the  Rape  of  the  Lock,  he  observes  that  the  irregular 
measure  at  the  opening  of  the  Allegro  and  Penseroso 
"  hurts  our  English  ear."  Gray  "  loved  intellectual  ease 
and  luxury,  and  wished  as  a  sort  of  Mahometan  para- 
dise to  '  lie  on  a  sofa,  and  read  eternal  new  romances  of 
Mirivaux  and  Cr^billon.'  Yet  all  he  could  say  of  Thom- 
son's Castle  of  Indolence,  when  it  was  first  published, 
was,  that  there  were  some  good  verses  in  it.  Akenside, 
too,  whom  he  was  so  well  fitted  to  appreciate,  he  thought 
*  often  obscure,  and  even  unintelligible.'  "  Horace  Wal- 
pole  marveled  at  the  dullness  of  people  who  can  admire 
anything  so  stupidly  extravagant  and  barbarous  as  the 
Divina  Commedia.  "  The  long-continued  contempt  for 
Bunyan  and  De  Foe  was  merely  an  expression  of  the 
ordinary  feeling  of  the  cultivated  classes  toward  any- 
thing which  was  identified  with  Grub  Street ;  but  it  is 
curious  to  observe  the  incapacity  of  such  a  man  as  John- 
son to  understand  Gray  or  Sterne,  and  the  contempt 
which  Walpole  expressed  for  Johnson  and  Goldsmith, 
while  he  sincerely  believed  that  the  poems  of  Mason 
were  destined  to  immortality."  The  poet  Rogers  tells 
us  that  Henry  Mackenzie  advised  Burns  to  take  for  his 
model  in  song-writing  Mrs.  John  Hunter !  Byron  be- 
lieved that  Rogers  and  Moore  were  the  truest  poets 
among  his  contemporaries  ;  that  Pope  was  the  first  of  all 
English,  if  not  of  all  existing  poets,  and  that  Wordsworth 
10 


146  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

was  nothing  but  a  namby-pamby  driveler.  De  Quincey 
speaks  of  "  Mr.  Goethe  "  as  an  immoral  and  second-rate 
author,  who  owes  his  reputation  chiefly  to  the  fact  of  his 
long  life  and  his  position  at  the  court  of  Weimar,  and 
Charles  Lamb  expressed  a  decided  preference  of  Mar- 
lowe's Dr.  Faustus  to  Goethe's  immortal  Faust.  Dr. 
Johnson's  opinion  of  Milton's  sonnets  is  pretty  well 
known  —  "  those  soul-animating  strains,  alas  !  too  few," 
as  Wordsworth  estimated  them.  Hannah  More  won- 
dered that  Milton  could  write  "  such  poor  sonnets.'' 
Johnson  said,  "  Milton,  madam,  was  a  genius  that  could 
cut  a  Colossus  from  a  rock,  but  could  not  carve  heads 
upon  cherry-stones."  He  attacked  Swift  on  all  occasions. 
He  said,  speaking  of  Gulliver's  Travels,  "  When  once  you 
have  thought  of  big  men  and  little  men,  it  is  very  easy  to 
do  all  the  rest."  He  called  Gray  "  a  dull  fellow."  "  Sir, 
he  was  dull  in  company,  dull  in  his  closet,  dull  every- 
where. He  was  dull  in  a  new  way,  and  that  made  many 
people  call  him  great."  Talking  of  Sterne,  he  said, 
*'  Nothing  odd  will  last  long.  Tristram  Shandy  did  not 
last."  See  how  Horace  Walpole  disposes  of  some  of  the 
gods  of  literature.  "  Tiresome  Tristram  Shandy,  of  which 
I  could  never  get  through  three  volumes."  "  I  have  read 
Sheridan's  Critic ;  it  appeared  wondrously  flat  and  old, 
and  a  poor  imitation."  He  speaks  of  wading  through 
Spenser's  "  allegories  and  drawling  stanzas."  Chaucer's 
Canterbury  Tales,  he  said,  are  "  a  lump  of  mineral  from 
which  Dryden  extracted  all  the  gold,  and  converted  it  into 
beautiful  medals."  "  Dante  was  extravagant,  absurd, 
disgusting:  in  short,  a  Methodist  parson  in  Bedlam." 
*'  Montaigne's  Travels  I  have  been  reading;  if  I  was  tired 
of  the  Essays,  what  must  one  be  of  these  ?  What  signi- 
fies what  a  man  thought  who  never  thought  of  anything 
but  himself  ?  and  what  signifies  what  a  man  did  who 
never  did  anything  ?  "  "  Boswell's  book,"  he  said,  "  is  the 
Story  of  a  mountebank  and  his  zany."      Pepys,  in  his 


REWARDS.  147 

Diary,  speaks  of  having  bought  "  Hudibras,  both  parts, 
the  book  now  in  greatest  fashion  for  drollery,  though  I 
cannot,  I  confess,  see  enough  where  the  wit  lies."     Scali- 
ger  called  Montaigne   "  a  bold  ignoramus."     Paley  used 
to*  say  that  to  read  Tristram  Shandy  was  the  summum 
bonum  of  life.     Goldsmith  said  its  author  was  a  "block- 
head."    Goethe  told  a  young  Italian  who  asked  him  his 
opinion  of  Dante's  great  poem,  that  he  thought  the  In- 
ferno abominable,  the  Purgatorio  dubious,  and  the  Para- 
diso   tiresome.      Coleridge,    talking  of   Goethe's   Faust, 
said,  "  There  is  no  whole  in  the  poem  ;  the  scenes  are 
mere  magic-lantern  pictures,  and  a  large  part  of  the  work 
is  to  me  very  flat.     Moreover,  much  of  it  is  vulgar,  licen- 
tious, and  blasphemous."     "  Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner, 
is,  I  think,"  says  Southey,  "the  clumsiest  attempt  at  Ger- 
man sublimity  I  ever  saw."     Johnson  told  Anna  Seward 
that  " he  would  hang  a  dog  that  read  the  Lycidas  of  Mil- 
ton twice."     Waller  wrote  of  Paradise  Lost  on  its  first 
appearance,  "The  old  blind  school-master,  John  Milton, 
hath  published  a  tedious  poem  on  the  fall  of  man ;  if  its 
length  be  not  considered  a  merit,  it  has  no  other."     Cur- 
ran  declared  Paradise  Lost  to  be  the  "  worst  poem  in  the 
language."     When   Harvey's  book  on  the  circulation  of 
the  blood  came  out,  "  he  fell  mightily  in  his  practice.     It 
was  believed  by  the  vulgar  that  he  was  crack-brained,  and 
all  the  physicians  were  aga'inst  him."     Who  has  forgotten 
the  fierce  attack  of  the  Quarterly  Review  on  Jane  Eyre, 
in  which  the   unknown    author,  who   was  a  clergj-man's 
daughter,  is  pronounced  "  a  person  who,  with  great  mental 
powers,  combines   a  total  ignorance  of   society,  a  great 
coarseness  of   taste,  and   a   heathenish    doctrine   of   re- 
ligion "  ?     "  If  we  ascribe  the  book  to  a  woman  at  all," 
continues  the  keen-sighted  critic,  "we  have  no  alternative 
but  to  ascribe  it  to  one  who  has,  for  some  sufficient  rea- 
son, forfeited   the  society  of   her  own   sex."     Schiller's 
intimate  friends  decided  against  the  Indian  Death  Song, 


148  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

which  Goethe  afterward  pronounced  one  of  his  best 
poems.  When  Andersen  published  his  Wonder  Stories 
told  for  Children,  which  fixed  his  place  in  literature  and 
in  popular  affection,  the  reviewers  advised  him  to  waste 
no  more  time  over  such  work ;  and  he  said,  "  I  would  will- 
ingly have  discontinued  writing  them,  but  they  forced 
themselves  from  me."  Warren  says  that  the  first  chapter 
of  the  Diary  of  a  Late  Physician  —  the  Early  Struggles, — 
was  ofifered  by  him  successively  to  the  conductors  of  three 
leading  London  magazines,  and  rejected,  as  "  unsuitable 
for  their  pages,"  and  "  not  likely  to  interest  the  public." 
Scott  tells  us  that  one  of  his  nearest  friends  predicted  the 
failure  of  Waverley.  Herder,  one  of  the  most  compre- 
hensive thinkers  and  versatile  authors  of  Germany,  ad- 
jured Goethe  not  to  take  so  unpromising  a  subject  as 
Faust.  Hume  tried  to  dissuade  Robertson  from  writing 
the  History  of  Charles  V.  Montesquieu,  upon  the  com- 
pletion of  The  Spirit  of  Laws,  which  had  cost  him  twenty 
years  of  labor,  and  which  ran  through  twenty-two  editions 
in  less  than  as  many  months  after  its  publication,  sub- 
mitted the  manuscript  to  Helvetius  and  Saurin,  who  re- 
turned it  with  the  advice  not  to  spoil  a  great  reputation 
by  publishing  it.  Wordsworth  told  Robinson  that  before 
his  ballads  were  published,  Tobin  implored  him  to  leave 
out  We  are  Seven,  as  a  poem  that  would  damn  the  book. 
It  turned  out  to  be  one  of  the  iftost  popular.  That  charm- 
ing and  once  popular  Scottish  story.  The  Annals  of  the 
Parish,  by  John  Gait,  was  written  ten  or  twelve  years  be- 
fore the  date  of  its  publication,  and  anterior  to  the  ap- 
pearance of  Waverley  and  Guy  Mannering,  and  was  re- 
jected by  the  publishers  of  those  works,  with  the  assur- 
ance that  a  novel  or  work  of  fiction  entirely  Scottish 
wouM  not  take  with  the  public.  St.  Pierre  submitted  his 
delightful  tale,  Paul  and  Virginia,  to  the  criticisms  of  a 
circle  of  his  learned  friends.  They  told  him  that  it  was 
a  failure ;  that  to  publish  it  would  be  a  piece  of  foolish- 


REWARDS.  149 

ness  ;  that  nobody  would  read  it.  St.  Pierre  appealed 
from  his  learned  critics  to  his  unlearned  but  sympathetic 
and  sensible  housekeeper.  He  read  —  she  listened,  ad- 
mired, and  wept.  He  accepted  her  verdict,  and  will  be 
remembered  by  one  little  story  longer  than  his  contem- 
poraries by  their  weary  tomes.  Moliere  made  use  of  a 
pers6n  of  the  same  class  to  criticise  his  plays.  "  I  re- 
member," says  Boileau,  "his  pointing  out  to  me  several 
times  an  old  servant  that  he  had,  to  whom  he  told  me  he 
sometimes  read  his  comedies,  and  he  assured  me  that 
when  the  humorous  passages  did  not  strike  her,  he  al- 
tered them,  because  he  had  frequently  proved  that  such 
passages  did  not  take  upon  the  stage." 

It  would  be  curious  to  know  how  much  chance  or  ac- 
cident has  had  to  do  with  even  the  best  of  the  produc- 
tions of  literature.  Wordsworth,  in  a  conversation  with 
one  of  his  friends,  gave  an  account  of  the  origin  of  the 
Ancient  Mariner.  It  was  written  in  Devonshire,  where 
he  and  Coleridge  were  together.  It  was  intended  for 
the  Monthly  Magazine,  and  was  to  pay  the  expenses  of 
a  journey.  It  was  to  have  been  a  joint  work,  but  Words- 
worth left  the  execution  to  Coleridge,  after  suggesting 
much  of  the  plan.  The  idea  of  the  crime  was  suggested 
by  a  book  of  travels,  in  which  the  superstition  of  the  sail- 
ors with  regard  to  the  albatross  is  mentioned.  Mark 
Lemon,  it  is  said,  loved  to  tell  an  anecdote  which  related 
to  the  period  when  Hood  became  a  contributor  to  Punch. 
Looking  over  his  letters  one  morning,  he  opened  an  en- 
velope inclosing  a  poem  which  the  writer  said  had  been 
rejected  by  three  contemporaries.  If  not  thought  availa- 
ble for  Punch,  he  begged  the  editor,  whom  he  knew  but 
slightly,  to  consign  it  to  the  waste-paper  basket,  as  the 
writer  was  "  sick  at  the  sight  of  it."  The  poem  was 
signed  "Tom  Hood,"  and  the  lines  were  entitled  "The 
Song  of  the  Shirt."  The  work  was  altogether  different 
from  anything  that  had  ever  appeared  in  Punch,  and  was 


150  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

considered  so  much  out  of  keeping  with  the  spirit  of  the 
periodical  that  at  the  weekly  meeting  its  publication  was 
opposed  by  several  members  of  the  staff.  Lemon  was  so 
firmly  impressed,  not  only  with  the  beauty  of  the  work,  but 
with  its  suitableness,  that  he  stood  by  his  first  decision 
and  published  it.  The  Song  of  the  Shirt  trebled  the  sale 
of  the  paper,  and  created  a  profound  sensation  through- 
out Great  Britain.  Scott  told  Ticknor  that  he  once  trav- 
eled with  Campbell  in  a  stage-coach  alone,  and  that,  to 
beguile  the  time,  they  talked  of  poetry  and  began  to  re- 
peat some.  At  last  Scott  asked  Campbell  for  something 
of  his  own,  and  he  said  there  was  one  thing  he  had  writ- 
ten but  never  printed  that  was  full  of  "  drums  and  trum- 
pets and  blunderbusses  and  thunder,"  and  he  didn't 
know  if  there  was  anything  good  in  it.  And  then  he 
repeated  Hohenlinden.  Scott  listened  with  the  greatest 
interest,  and  when  he  had  finished,  broke  out,  "  But  do 
you  know  that 's  devilish  fine  ;  why  it 's  the  finest  thing 
you  ever  wrote,  and  it  must  be  printed !  "  Scott  told 
Leslie  that  he  had  known  a  laboring  man  who  was  with 
Burns  when  he  turned  up  the  mouse  with  his  plow. 
Burns'  first  impulse  was  to  kill  it,  but  checking  himself, 
as  his  eye  followed  the  little  creature,  he  said,  "  I  '11  make 
that  mouse  immortal  ! " 

"  One  meets  now  and  then  with  polished  men,"  says 
Emerson,  "  who  know  everything,  have  tried  everything, 
can  do  everything,  and  are  quite  superior  to  letters  and 
science.  What  could  they  not,  if  only  they  would  ?  " 
Wrote  Byron  :  — 

"  Many  are  poets  who  have  never  penned 

Their  inspiration,  and  perchance  the  best ; 

They  felt,  and  loved,  and  died,  but  would  not  lend 
Their  thoughts  to  meaner  things  ;  they  compressed 

The  god  within  them,  and  rejoined  the  stars 
Unlaureled  upon  earth." 

"On  my  walk  with  Lamb,"  notes  Robinson,  "he  spoke 


REWARDS.  151 

with  enthusiasm  of  Manning,  declaring  that  he  is  the 
most  wonderful  man  he  ever  knew,  more  extraordinary 
than  Wordsworth  or  Coleridge.  Yet  he  does  nothing. 
He  has  traveled  even  in  China,  and  has  been  by  land 
from  India  through  Thibet,  yet,  as  far  as  is  known,  he 
has  written  nothing."  "  My  father,"  said  Charles  Kings- 
ley,  "  was  a  magnificent  man  in  body  and  mind,  and  was 
said  to  possess  every  talent  except  that  of  using  his  tal- 
ents." Dr.  Johnson  lamented  that  "  those  who  are  most 
capable  of  improving  mankind  very  frequently  neglect  to 
communicate  their  knowledge  ;  either  because  it  is  more 
pleasing  to  gather  ideas  than  to  impart  them,  or  because 
to  minds  naturally  great,  few  things  appear  of  so  n?uch 
importance  as  to  deserve  the  notice  of  the  public." 
"  Great  constitutions,"  says  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  "  and 
such  as  are  constellated  unto  knowledge,  do  nothing  till 
they  outdo  all ;  they  come  short  of  themselves,  if  they  go 
not  beyond  others,  and  must  not  sit  down  under  the  de- 
gree of  worthies.  God  expects  no  lustre  from  the  minor 
stars ;  but  if  the  sun  should  not  illuminate  all,  it  were  a 
sin  in  nature."  Rogers  said  of  Sydney  Smith  (of  whose 
death  he  had  just  heard),  in  answer  to  the  question, 
"  How  came  it  that  he  did  not  publicly  show  his  pow- 
ers ? "  "  He  had  too  fastidious  a  taste,  and  too  high  an 
idea  of  what  ought  to  be."  Disappointment  is  often  felt 
and  sometimes  expressed  concerning  Coleridge,  by  those 
who  hear  so  much  of  his  extraordinary  intellect.  How 
could  he  have  done  more  ?  His  was  one  of  those  great, 
homeless  souls  which  fly  between  heaven  and  earth ;  his 
language  was  only  partly  understood  in  this  world,  if 
wholly  in  another.  His  best  utterances  were  but  inco- 
herencies  to  the  human  ears  that  heard  them.  Stupid 
John  Chester  understood  them  as  well  as  any. 

"  Vast  objects  of  remote  altitude,"  says  Landor,  "  must 
be  looked  at  a  long  while  before  they  are  ascertained. 
Ages  are  the  telescope  tubes  that  must  be  lengthened  out 


152  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

for  Shakespeare;  and  generations  of  men  serve  but  as 
single  witnesses  to  his  claims."  "  Shakespeare,"  said 
Coleridge,  ."  is  of  no  age  —  nor,  I  may  add,  of  any  re- 
ligion, or  party,  or  profession.  The  body  and  substance 
of  his  works  came  out  of  the  unfathomable  depths  of  his 
own  oceanic  mind  ;  his  observation  and  reading  supplied 
him  with  the  drapery  of  his  figures."  "  The  sand  heaped 
by  one  flood,"  says  Dr.  Johnson,  "is  scattered  by  an- 
other ;  but  the  rock  always  continues  in  its  place.  The 
stream  of  time,  which  is  continually  washing  the  disso- 
luble fabrics  of  other  poets,  passes  without  injury  by 
the  adamant  of  Shakespeare."  "Milton  is  not,"  says 
De  Quincey,  "  an  author  amongst  authors,  not  a  poet 
amongst  poets,  but  a  power  amongst  powers  ;  and  the 
Paradise  Lost  is  not  a  book  amongst  books,  not  a  poem 
amongst  poems,  but  a  central  force  amongst  forces." 
Landor,  in  his  Imaginary  Conversations,  makes  Marvell 
thus  to  address  Marten  :  "  Hast  thou  not  sat  convivially 
with  Oliver  Cromwell  ?  Hast  thou  not  conversed  famil- 
iarly with  the  only  man  greater  than  he,  John  Milton } 
One  was  ambitious  of  perishable  power,  the  other  of  im- 
perishable glory  ;  both  have  attained  their  aim."  Hazlitt 
and  Coleridge  being  together,  some  comparison  was  intro- 
duced between  Shakespeare  and  Milton.  Coleridge  said 
"he  hardly  knew  which  to  prefer.  Shakespeare  seemed 
to  him  a  mere  stripling  in  the  art ;  he  was  as  tall  and  as 
strong,  with  infinitely  more  activity  than  Milton,  but  he 
never  appeared  to  have  come  to  man's  estate ;  or  if  he 
had,  he  would  not  have  been  a  man,  but  a  monster." 
"  A  rib  of  Shakespeare,"  said  Landor,  "  would  have  made 
a  Milton  ;  the  same  portion  of  Milton,  all  poets  born  ever 
since."  Said  Goethe,  "Would  you  see  Shakespeare's 
intellect  unfettered,  read  Troilus  and  Cressida,  and  see 
how  he  uses  the  materials  of  the  Iliad  in  his  fashion." 
Said  Coleridge,  "Compare  Nestor,  Ajax,  Achilles,  etc., 
in  the  Troilus  and  Cressida  of  Shakespeare,  with  theii 


REWARDS.  153 

namesakes  in  the  Iliad.  The  old  heroes  seem  all  to  have 
been  at  school  ever  since."  "  It  was  really  Voltaire," 
said  Goethe,  "who  excited  such  minds  as  Diderot, 
D'Alembert,  and  Beaumarchais ;  for  to  be  somewhat  near 
him  a  man  needed  to  be  much,  and  could  take  no  holi- 
days." "To  have  seen  such  a  man  as  Dr.  Johnson," 
said  Dr.  Campbell,  "  was  a  thing  to  talk  of  a  century 
hence."  "  Nature,"  said  Heine,  "wanted  to  see  how  she 
looked,  and  she  created  Goethe."  "Were  Byron  now 
alive,  and  Burns,"  said  Hawthorne,  "  the  first  would  come 
from  his  ancestral  abbey,  flinging  aside,  although  unwill- 
ingly, the  inherited  honors  of  a  thousand  years,  to  take 
the  arm  of  the  mighty  peasant  who  grew  immortal  while 
he  stooped  behind  his  plow." 

Generally,  thought  Goethe,  the  personal  character  of 
the  writer  influences  the  public,  rather  than  his  talents  as 
an  artist.     Napoleon  said  of  Corneille,  "  If  he  were  living 
now,  I  would  make  him  a  prince,"  yet  he  never  read  him. 
"  I  have  often  been  amused  at  thinking,"  says  Landor, 
"  in  what  estimation  the  greatest  of  mankind  were  holden 
by  their  contemporaries.     Not  even  the  most  sagacious 
and  prudent  one  could  discover  much  of  them,  or  could 
prognosticate  their  future  course  in  the  infinity  of  space  ! 
Men  like  ourselves  are  permitted  to  stand  near,  and  in- 
deed in  the  very  presence  of  Milton  :  what  do  they  see  ? 
dark  clothes,  gray  hair,  and  sightless  eyes  !     Other  men 
have   better   things  :   other  men,   therefore,  are   nobler ! 
The  stars   themselves   are  only  bright  by  distance  ;   go 
close,  and   all   is   earthy."     "There  is,"  says  Emerson, 
"  somewhat  touching  in  the  madness  with  which  the  pass- 
ing age  mischooses  the  object  on  which  all  candles  shine, 
and  all  eyes  are  turned  ;  the  care  with  which  it  registers 
everything  touching  Queen  Elizabeth,  and  King  James, 
and  the  Essexes,  Leicesters,  Burleighs,  and  Buckinghams  ; 
and  lets  pass  without  a  single  valuable  note  the  founder  of 
another  dynasty,  which  alone  will  cause  the  Tudor  dynasty 


154  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

to  be  remembered,  —  the  man  who  carries  the  Saxon 
race  in  him  by  the  inspiration  which  feeds  him,  and  on 
whose  thoughts  the  foremost  people  of  the  world  are  now 
for  some  ages  to  be  nourished,  and  minds  to  receive  this 
and  not  another  bias.  A  popular  player,  —  nobody  sus- 
pected he  was  the  poet  of  the  human  race  ;  and  the  secret 
was  kept  as  faithfully  from  poets  and  intellectual  men, 
as  from  courtiers  and  frivolous  people.  Bacon,  who  took 
the  inventory  of  the  human  understanding  for  his  times 
never  mentioned  his  name.  Ben  Jonson,  though  we  have 
strained  his  few  words  of  regard  and  panegyric,  had  no 
suspicion  of  the  elastic  fame  whose  first  vibrations  he  was 
attempting.  He  no  doubt  thought  the  praise  he  has  con- 
ceded to  him  generous,  and  esteemed  himself,  out  of  all 
question,  the  better  poet  of  the  two."  "  The  people  of 
Gascony,  who  knew  Montaigne  well,"  says  the  biographer 
of  the  great  essayist,  "  thought  it  very  droll  to  see  him  in- 
print.  He  had  to  pay  printers  and  publishers  in  Guienne ; 
elsewhere  they  were  eager  to  buy  him."  Horace  Walpole 
heard  a  sight-seer,  on  being  shown  the  bows  and  arrows 
in  the  armory  at  Strawberry  Hill,  ask  the  housekeeper, 
"  Pray,  does  Mr.  Walpole  shoot  ? "  One  of  his  titled 
neighbors  told  him,  that,  having  some  company  with  her, 
one  of  them  had  been  to  see  Strawberry.  "  Pray,"  said 
another,  "  who  is  that  Mr.  Walpole  ?  "  "  Lord  1 "  cried  a 
third,  "  don't  you  know  the  great  epicure,  Mr.  Walpole  ?  " 
"  Pho  !  "  cried  the  first,  "  great  epicure  !  you  mean  the 
antiquarian."  The  only  tradition  a  visitor  could  gather 
in  Pope's  garden  at  Twickenham  was  that  a  fine  cedar 
was  planted  there  by  a  famous  man  a  long  time  ago.  An 
elderly,  well-to-do  inhabitant  of  Beaconsfield,  of  whom  the 
same  person  inquired  where  Burke  had  lived,  made  an- 
swer :  "  Pray,  sir,  was  he  a  poet  ? "  During  a  pilgrimage 
which  we  are  told  Rogers  and  his  friend  Maltby  made  to 
Gerrard  Street,  Soho,  to  discover  the  house  once  occupied 
by  Dryden,  they  came  upon  a  house  agent,  who,  scenting 


REWARDS.  155 

a  job,  eagerly  responded:  "  Dryden  —  Mr,  Dryden  —  is 
he  behindhand  with  his  rent  ?  "  There  is  a  story  of  an 
American  who  lost  his  way  in  the  vain  attempt  to  discover 
the  residence  of  Wordsworth.  Meeting  an  old  woman  in 
a  scarlet  cloak  who  was  gathering  sticks,  he  asked  her  the 
way  to  Rydal  Mount.  She  could  not  tell  him.  "Not 
know,"  said  the  American,  "  the  house  of  the  great  Words- 
worth ? "  "  No  ;  but  what  was  he  great  in }  Was  he  a 
preacher  or  a  doctor  ?  "  "  Greater  than  any  preacher  or 
doctor  —  he  is  a  poet,"  "Oh,  the  poet!"  she  replied; 
"  and  why  did  you  not  tell  me  that  before  ?  I  know  who 
you  mean  now.  I  often  meet  him  in  the  woods,  jabbering 
his  pottery  (poetry)  to  hisself.  But  I  'm  not  afraid  of 
him.  He 's  quite  harmless,  and  almost  as  sensible  as  you 
or  me."  A  Prussian  staff-ofhcer  was  quartered  in  Goethe'3 
house  after  Jena,  This  officer,  being  afterward  much  in- 
terrogated by  the  curious  as  to  his  impressions  of  the 
great  man,  replied  "that  he  had  thoroughly  tested  the 
fellow  and  found  that  he  had  nothing  but  nonsense  in  his 
head !  "  Rogers  told  Leslie  that  when  the  Pleasures  of 
Memory  was  first  published,  one  of  those  busy  gentlemen, 
who  are  vain  of  knowing  everybody,  came  up  to  him  at  a 

party,  and  said,  "  Lady is  dying  to  be  introduced  to 

the  author  of  the  Pleasures  of  Memory."  "  Pray,  let  her 
live,"  said  Rogers,  and  with  difficulty  they  made  their  way 
through  the  crowd  to  the  lady.  "Mr,  Rogers,  madam, 
author  of  the  Pleasures  of  Memory,"  "  Pleasures  of 
what ?  "     "I  felt  for  my  friend,"  said  Rogers, 

No  doubt  the  most  genuine  and  grateful  rewards  which 
authors  have  received  were  those  which  came  to  them  as 
surprises,  or  in  overheard  responses,  unbidden  and  nat- 
ural, from  the  common  heart  of  humanity.  Mrs,  Brod- 
erip  reports  of  her  father's  pleasure  in  the  immense 
popularity  of  his  Song  of  the  Shirt,  that  "what  delighted 
and  yet  touched  him  most  deeply  was,  that  the  pooi 
creatures  to  whose  sorrows  and  sufferings  he  had  given 


J  56  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

such  eloquent  voice,  seemed  to  adopt  its  words  as  their 
own,  by  singing  them  about  the  streets  to  a  rude  air  of 
their  own  adaptation."  Bernard  Barton  ends  a  letter  de- 
scriptive of  an  endearing  girl's  village  funeral,  with  telling 
how  **  the  clergyman,  at  the  close  of  the  service,  stated 
that,  by  her  wish,  a  little  hymn,  which  was  a  great  favor- 
ite with  her,  would  be  sung  beside  her  open  grave,  by 
the  school-children  —  some  five-and-twenty  little  things  — 
whose  eyes  and  cheeks  were  red  with  crying.  *  I  thought 
they  could  never  have  found  tongues,  poor  things;  but 
once  set  off,  they  sang  like  a  little  band  of  cherubs. 
What  added  to  the  effect  of  it,  to  me,  was  that  it  was  a 
little  almost  forgotten  hymn  of  my  own,  written  years  ago, 
which  no  one  present,  but  myself,  was  at  all  aware  of.' " 
Goldsmith,  in  his  college  career,  wrote  street  ballads,  to 
save  himself  from  starving,  sold  them  for  five  shillings 
apiece,  and  stole  out  of  college  at  night  to  hear  them 
sung.  "Happy  night  to  him,  worth  all  the  dreary  days  ! '' 
exclaims  his  biographer,  Forster.  "  Hidden  by  some 
dusky  wall,  or  creeping  within  darkling  shadows  of  the 
ill-lighted  streets,  this  poor,  neglected  sizer  watched, 
waited,  lingered  there,  for  the  only  effort  of  his  life  which 
had  not  wholly  failed.  Few  and  dull,  perhaps,  the  beg- 
gar's audience  at  first,  but  more  thronging,  eager,  and 
delighted,  as  he  shouted  forth  his  newly-gotten  ware. 
Cracked  enough,  I  doubt  not,  were  those  ballad-singing 
tones ;  very  harsh,  extremely  discordant,  and  passing 
from  loud  to  low  without  meaning  or  melody  ;  but  not  the 
less  did  the  sweetest  music  which  this  earth  affords  fall 
with  them  on  the  ear  of  Goldsmith." 


VI. 

LIMITS. 

Minds,  like  some  seeJ-plants,  delight  in  sporting ; 
there  is  great  variety  in  thinking,  but  the  few  gieat  ideas 
remain  the  same.  They  are  constantly  reappearing  in 
all  ages  and  in  all  literatures,  modified  by  new  circum- 
stances and  new  uses ;  though  in  new  dresses,  they  are 
still  the  old  originals.  Like  the  virtues,  they  have  great 
and  endless  services  to  perform  in  this  world.  Now  they 
appear  in  philosophy,  now  in  fiction  ;  the  moralist  uses 
them,  and  the  buffoon ;  dissociate  them,  analyze  them, 
strip  them  of  their  innumerable  dresses,  and  they  are  rec- 
ognized and  identified  —  the  same  from  the  foundation 
and  forever.  If  a  discriminating  general  reader  for  forty 
years  had  noted  their  continual  reappearance  in  the  tons 
of  books  he  has  perused  upon  all  subjects,  he  would  be 
astonished  at  their  varied  and  multiplied  uses.  Thinkers 
he  would  perhaps  find  more  numerous  than  thoughts  ; 
yet  of  the  former  how  few.  The  original  thought  of  one 
age  diffuses  itself  through  the  next,  and  expires  in  com- 
monplace—  to  be  born  again  when  occasion  necessitates 
and  God  wills.  At  each  birth  it  is  a  new  creation  —  to 
the  brain  it  springs  from  and  to  the  creatures  it  is  to  en- 
lighten and  serve.  If  the  writer  or  speaker  could  know 
how  often  it  has  done  even  hack-service  in  the  ajres 
before  him,  he  would  repentantly  blot  it  out,  or  choke  in 
its  utterance.  In  the  unpleasant  discovery,  that  indis- 
pensable and  inspiring  quality,  self-conceit,  would  suffer  a 
wound  beyond  healing. 

"  The  number  of  those  writers  who  can,  with  any  just- 


158  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

ness  of  expression,"  says  Melmoth,  "  be  termed  thinking 
authors,  would  not  form  a  very  copious  Hbrary,  though 
one  were  to  take  in  all  of  that  kind  which  both  ancient 
and  modern  times  have  produced.  Epicurus,  we  are  told, 
left  behind  him  three  hundred  volumes  of  his  own  works, 
wherein  he  had  not  inserted  a  single  quotation  ;  and  we 
have  it  upon  the  authority  of  Varro's  own  works,  that  he 
himself  composed  four  hundred  and  ninety  books.  Sen 
eca  assures  us  that  Didymus,  the  grammarian,  wrote  no 
less  than  four  thousand ;  but  Origen,  it  seems,  was  yet 
nioi  e  prolific,  and  extended  his  performances  even  to  "ix 
thousand  treatises.  It  is  obvious  to  imagine  with  what 
sort  of  materials  the  productions  of  such  expeditious 
workmen  were  wrought  up :  sound  thought  and  well- 
matured  reflections  could  have  no  share,  we  may  be  sure, 
in  these  hasty  performances.  Thus  are  books  multiplied, 
whilst  authors  are  scarce  ;  and  so  much  easier  is  it  to 
write  than  to  think."  "  The  same  man,"  said  Publius 
Syrus,  "  can  rarely  say  a  great  deal  and  say  it  to  the  pur- 
pose." 

To  ridicule  the  pervading  absence  of  thought  in  com- 
mon conversation,  the  author  of  Lothair  makes  Pinto 
exclaim,  "  English  is  an  expressive  language,  but  not 
difficult  to  master.  Its  range  is  limited.  It  consists,  as 
far  as  I  observe,  of  four  words:  'nice,'  'jolly,'  'charm- 
ing/ and  '  bore  ; '  and  some  grammarians  add,  '  fond.'  " 

Proverbs,  old  as  they  are,  seem  always  new,  and  are 
always  smartly  uttered.  Sancho  Panza  is  but  one  of  an 
immortal  type,  and  the  proverbs  and  maxims  he  was  al- 
ways using  are  older  than  the  pyramids  —  as  old  as 
spoken  language.  "  The  language  of  Spain,"  says  Bul- 
wer,  in  Caxtoniana,  "  is  essentially  a  language  of  prov- 
erbs. In  proverbs,  lovers  woo  ;  in  proverbs,  politicians 
argue  ;  in  proverbs,  you  make  your  bargain  with  your 
landlady  or  hold  a  conference  with  your  muleteer.  The 
language  of  Spain  is  built  upon  those  diminutive  relics  of 


LIMITS.  159 

a  wisdom  that  may  have  existed  before  the  Deluge,  as 
the  town  of  Berlin  is  built  upon  strata  amassed,  in  the 
process  of  ages,  by  the  animalcules  that  dwell  in  their 
pores."  Aristotle  was  so  struck  by  the  condensed  wis- 
dom of  proverbial  sayings,  that  he  supposed  them  to  be 
the  wrecks  of  an  ancient  philosophy  saved  from  the  ruin 
in  which  the  rest  of  the  system  had  been  lost  by  their 
eloquence  and  shortness,  Pascal  conceived  that  ever} 
possible  maxim  of  conduct  existed  in  the  world,  though 
no  individual  can  be  conversant  with  the  entire  series. 
*'  There  is  a  certain  list  of  vices  committed  in  all  ages, 
and  declaimed  against  by  all  authors,  which,"  says  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  "  will  last  as  long  as  human  nature ; 
which,  digested  into  commonplaces,  may  serve  for  any 
theme,  and  never  be  out  of  date  until  doomsday."  A 
proverb  Lord  John  Russell  has  defined  to  be  "  the  wis- 
dom of  the  many  in  the  wit  of  one."  "The  various 
humors  of  mankind,"  says  the  elder  Disraeli,  "in  the 
mutability  of  human  affairs,  has  given  birth  to  every  spe- 
cies ;  and  men  were  wise,  or  merry,  or  satirical,  and 
mourned  or  rejoiced  in  proverbs.  Nations  held  an  uni- 
versal intercourse  of  proverbs,  from  the  eastern  to  the 
western  world  ;  for  we  discover  among  those  which  ap- 
pear strictly  national  many  which  are  common  to  them 
all.  Of  our  own  familiar  ones  several  may  be  tracked 
among  the  snows  of  the  Latins  and  the  Greeks,  and  have 
sometimes  been  drawn  from  The  Mines  of  the  East ;  like 
decayed  families  which  remain  in  obscurity,  they  may 
boast  of  a  high  lineal  descent  whenever  they  recover 
their  lost  title-deeds.  The  vulgar  proverb,  '  To  carry 
coals  to  Newcastle,'  local  and  idiomatic  as  it  appears, 
however,  has  been  borrowed  and  applied  by  ourselves  ;  it 
may  be  found  among  the  Persians  ;  in  the  Bustan  of 
Saadi,  we  have  'To  carry  pepper  to  Hindostan;'  among 
the  Hebrews,  '  To  carry  oil  to  a  city  of  olives  ; '  a  similar 
proverb  occurs  in  Greek  ;   and  in  Galland's  Maxims  of 


l6o  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

the  East  we  may  discover  how  many  of  the  most  common 
proverbs  among  us,  as  well  as  some  of  Joe  Miller's  jests, 
are  of  Oriental  origin.  The  resemblance  of  certain  prov- 
erbs in  different  nations  must,  however,  be  often  ascribed 
to  the  identity  of  humai>  nature ;  similar  situations  and 
similar  objects  have  unquestionably  made  men  think  and 
act  and  express  themselves  alike.  All  nations  are  par- 
allels of  each  other.  Hence  all  collectors  of  proverbs 
complain  of  the  difficulty  of  separating  their  own  national 
proverbs  from  those  which  had  crept  into  the  language 
from  others,  particularly  when  nations  have  held  much 
intercourse  together.  We  have  a  copious  collection  of 
Scottish  proverbs  by  Kelly;  but  this  learned  man  was 
mortified  at  discovering  that  many,  which  he  had  long  be- 
lieved to  have  been  genuine  Scottish,  were  not  only  Eng- 
lish, but  French,  Italian,  Spanish,  Latin,  and  Greek  ones  j 
many  of  his  Scottish  proverbs  are  almost  literally  ex- 
pressed among  the  fragments  of  remote  antiquity.  It 
would  have  surprised  him  further  had  he  been  aware  that 
his  Greek  originals  were  themselves  but  copies,  and 
might  have  been  found  in  D'Herbelot,  Erpenius,  and  Go- 
lius,  and  in  many  Asiatic  works,  which  have  been  more 
recently  introduced  to  the  enlarged  knowledge  of  the  Eu- 
ropean student,  who  formerly  found  his  most  extended 
researches  limited  by  Hellenistic  lore." 

Perhaps  the  proverb  from  the  apostolical  writings  in 
most  frequent  circulation,  is  the  one  which  St.  Paul  has 
adopted  from  Menander,  and  which,  as  Dean  Alford  sug- 
gests, may  have  become,  in  the  days  of  the  apostle,  a  cur- 
rent commonplace  :  "  Evil  communications  corrupt  good 
manners." 

"  What  stories  are  new  ?  "  asks  Thackeray.  "  All  types 
of  all  characters  march  through  all  fables."  ''Will  it  be 
believed,"  says  Max  Miiller,  in  his  essay  On  the  Migra- 
tion of  Fables,  **  that  we,  in  this  Christian  country,  and 
in  the  nineteenth  century,  teach  our  children  the  first,  the 


LIMITS.  l6l 

most  important  lessons  of  worldly  wisdom,  nay,  of  a  more 
than  worldly  wisdom,  from  books  borrowed  from  Bud- 
dhists and  Brahmans,  from  heretics  and  idolaters,  and  that 
wise  words,  spoken  a  thousand,  nay,  two  thousand  years 
ago,  in  a  lonely  village  of  India,  like  precious  seed  scat- 
tered broadcast  all  over  the  world,  still  bear  fruit  a  hun- 
dred and  a  thousand  fold  in  that  soil  which  is  the  most 
precious  before  God  and  man,  the  soul  of  a  child  ?  No 
lawgiver,  no  philosopher  has  made  his  influence  felt  so 
widely,  so  deeply,  and  so  permanently  as  the  author  ol 
these  children's  fables.  But  who  was  he  ?  We  do  not 
know.  His  name,  like  the  name  of  many  a  benefactor  of 
the  human  race,  is  forgotten." 

"Our  obligations  to  genius  are  the  greater,"  says  a 
British  essayist,  "  because  we  are  seldom  able  to  trace 
them.  We  cannot  mount  up  to  the  sources  from  which 
we  derive  the  ideas  that  make  us  what  we  are.  Few  of 
my  readers  may  have  ever  read  Chaucer ;  fewer  still  the 
Principia  of  Newton.  Yet  how  much  poorer  the  minds 
of  all  my  readers  would  be  if  Chaucer  and  Newton  had 
never  written  !  All  the  genius  of  the  past  is  in  the  at- 
mosphere we  breathe  at  present." 

The  author  of  The  Eclipse  of  Faith,  in  one  of  his  in- 
tellectual visions,  saw  suddenly  expunged  —  "  remorse- 
lessly expunged  "  —  from  literature  "  every  text,  every 
phrase,  which  had  been  quoted  from  the  Bible,  not  only 
in  the  books  of  devotion  and  theology,  but  in  those  of 
poetry  and  fiction,  "  Never  before,"  he  says,  "  had  I 
any  adequate  idea  of  the  extent  to  which  the  Bible  had 
moulded  the  intellectual  and  moral  life  of  the  last  eight- 
een centuries,  nor  how  intimately  it  had  interfused  itself 
with  the  habits  of  thought  and  modes  of  expression ; 
nor  how  naturally  and  extensively  its  comprehensive  im- 
agery and  language  had  been  introduced  into  human 
writings,  and  most  of  all  where  there  had  been  most  of 
genius.  A  vast  portion  of  literature  became  instantly 
II 


l62  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

worthless,  and  was  transformed  into  so  much  waste  paper. 
It  was  almost  impossible  to  look  into  any  book  of  merit, 
and  read  ten  pages  together,  without  coming  to  some  pro- 
voking erasures  and  mutilations,  which  made  whole  pas- 
sages perfectly  unintelligible.  Many  of  the  sweetest  pas- 
sages of  Shakespeare  were  converted  into  unmeaning 
nonsense,  from  the  absence  of  those  words  which  his 
own  all  but  divine  genius  had  appropriated  from  a  still 
diviner  source.  As  to  Milton,  he  was  nearly  ruined,  as 
might  naturally  be  supposed.  Walter  Scott's  novels  were 
filled  with  lacunae.  I  hoped  it  might  be  otherwise  with 
the  philosophers,  and  so  it  was  ;  but  even  here  it  was 
curious  to  see  what  strange  ravages  the  visitation  had 
wrought.  Some  of  the  most  beautiful  and  comprehensive 
of  Bacon's  Aphorisms  were  reduced  to  enigmatical  non- 
sense." 

A  scholarly  article  upon  Homeric  Characters  in  and 
out  of  Homer,  published  in  The  London  Quarterly,  1857, 
opens  with  this  passage :  "  To  one  only  among  the  count- 
less millions  of  human  beings  has  it  been  given  to  draw 
characters,  by  the  strength  of  his  own  individual  hand, 
in  lines  of  such  force  and  vigor  that  they  have  become 
from  his  day  to  our  own  the  common  inheritance  of  civil- 
ized man.  That  one  is  Homer.  Ever  since  his  time, 
besides  finding  his  way  even  into  the  impenetrable  East, 
he  has  found  literary  capital  and  available  stock  in  trade 
for  reciters  and  hearers,  for  authors  and  readers  of  all 
times  and  of  all  places  within  the  limits  of  the  western 
world.  Like  the  sun,  which  furnishes  with  its  light  the 
courts  and  alleys  of  London,  while  himself  unseen  by 
their  inhabitants,  he  has  supplied  with  the  illumination 
of  his  ideas  millions  of  minds  never  brought  into  direct 
contact  with  his  works,  and  even  millions  hardly  aware 
of  his  existence." 

One  of  the  most  eminent  platform  orators  of  the  time 
Das  treated  the  habit  of  borrowing,  in  literature,  in  a 


LIMITS.  163 

most  interesting  manner.  "Take,"  he  said,  "the  stories 
of  Shakespeare,  who  has,  perhaps,  written  his  forty-odd 
plays.  Some  are  historical.  The  rest,  two  thirds  of 
them,  he  did  not  stop  to  invent,  but  he  found  them. 
These  he  clutched,  ready-made  to  his  hand,  from  the  Ital- 
ian novelists,  who  had  taken  them  before  from  the  East. 
Cinderella  and  her  Slipper  is  older  than  all  history,  like 
half  a  dozen  other  baby  legends.  The  annals  of  the 
world  do  not  go  back  far  enough  to  tell  us  from  where 
they  first  came.  Bulwer  borrowed  the  incidents  of  his 
Roman  stories  from  legends  of  a  thousand  years  before. 
Indeed,  Dunloch,  who  has  grouped  the  history  of  the 
novels  of  all  Europe  into  one  essay,  says  that  in  the  na- 
tions of  modern  Europe  there  have  been  two  hundred 
and  fifty  or  three  hundred  distinct  stories.  He  says  at 
least  two  hundred  of  these  may  be  traced,  before  Chris- 
tianity, to  the  other  side  of  the  Black  Sea.  Even  our 
newspaper  jokes  are  enjoying  a  very  respectable  old  age. 
Take  Maria  Edgeworth's  essay  on  Irish  bulls  and  the 
laughable  mistakes  of  the  Irish.  The  tale  which  Maria 
Edgeworth  or  her  father  thought  the  best  is  that  famous 
story  of  a  man  writing  a  letter  as  follows  :  '  My  dear 
friend,  I  would  write  you  more  in  detail,  more  minutely,  if 
there  was  not  an  impudent  fellow  looking  over  my  shoul- 
der reading  every  word.'  ('  No,  you  lie ;  I  've  not  read  a 
word  you  have  written  ! ')  This  is  an  Irish  bull,  still  it 
is  a  very  old  one.  It  is  only  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
older  than  the  New  Testament.  Horace  Walpole  dis- 
sented from  Richard  Lovell  Edgeworth,  and  thought  the 
other  Irish  bull  was  the  best  —  of  the  man  who  said,  *  I 
would  have  been  a  very  handsome  man,  but  they  changed 
me  in  the  cradle.'  That  comes  from  Don  Qubcote,  and 
is  Spanish  ;  but  Cervantes  borrowed  it  from  the  Greek  in 
the  fourth  century,  and  the  Greeks  stole  it  from  the  Egyp- 
tians hundreds  of  years  back.  There  is  one  story  which 
it  is  said  Washington  has  related  of  a  man  who  went  into 


1 64  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

an  inn  and  asked  for  a  glass  of  drink  from  the  landlord, 
who  pushed  forward  a  wine  glass  about  half  the  usual 
size.  The  landlord  said,  'That  glass  out  of  which  you 
are  drinking  is  forty  years  old.'  '  Well,'  said  the  thirsty 
traveler,  contemplating  its  minute  proportions,  *  I  think 
it  is  the  smallest  thing  of  its  age  I  ever  saw.'  [The  same 
story  is  told  of  Foote.  Dining  while  in  Paris  with  Lord 
Stormont,  that  thrifty  Scotch  peer,  then  ambassador,  as 
usual  produced  his  wine  in  the  smallest  of  decanters,  and 
dispensed  it  in  the  smallest  of  glasses,  enlarging  all  the 
time  on  its  exquisite  growth  and  enormous  age.  "  It  is 
very  little  of  its  age,"  said  Foote,  holding  up  his  diminu- 
tive glass.]  That  story  as  told  is  given  as  a  story  of 
Athens  three  hundr  sd  and  seventy-five  years  before  Christ 
was  born.  Why,  all  these  Irish  bulls  are  Greek  —  every 
one  of  them.  Take  the  Irishman  who  carried  around  a 
brick  as  a  specimen  of  the  house  he  had  to  sell ;  take 
the  Irishman  who  shut  his  eyes  and  looked  into  the  glass 
to  see  how  he  would  look  when  he  was  dead  ;  take  the 
Irishman  that  bought  a  crow,  alleging  that  crows  were 
reported  to  live  two  hundred  years,  and  he  meant  to  set 
out  and  try  it ;  take  the  Irishman  that  met  a  friend  who 
said  to  him,  *  Why,  sir,  I  heard  you  were  dead.'  '  Well,' 
says  the  man,  '  I  suppose  you  see  I  am  not.'  *  Oh,  no, 
says  he,  '  I  would  believe  the  man  who  told  me  a  great 
deal  quicker  than  I  would  you.'  Well,  these  are  all 
Greek.  A  score  or  more  of  them,  of  the  parallel  char- 
acter, come  from  Athens." 

The  critics  and  scholiasts  would  have  us  believe  that 
"  we  have  no  very  credible  account  of  Rome  or  the  Ro- 
mans for  more  than  four  hundred  years  after  the  founda- 
tion of  the  city ;  and  that  the  first  book  of  Livy,  contain- 
ing the  regal  period,  can  lay  claim,  when  severely  tested, 
to  no  higher  authority  than  Lord  Macaulay's  Lays.  Livy 
states  that  whatever  records  existed  prior  to  the  burning 
of   Rome  by  the  Gauls  —  three  hundred  and  sixty-five 


LIMITS  165 

years  after  its  foundation  —  were  then  burnt  or  lost.  We 
are  left,  therefore,  in  the  most  embarrassing  uncertainly 
whether  Tarquin  outraged  Lucretia ;  or  Brutus  shammed 
Idiotcy,  and  condemned  his  sons  to  death ;  or  Mutius 
Scaevola  thrust  his  hand  into  the  fire ;  or  Curtius  jumped 
into  the  gulf  —  if  there  was  one  ;  or  Cloelia  swam  the 
Tiber ;  or  Codes  defended  a  bridge  against  an  army.  We 
could  fill  pages  with  skeptical  doubts  of  scholiasts,  who 
would  fain  deprive  Diogenes  of  his  lantern  and  his  tub, 
^sop  of  his  hump,  Sappho  of  her  leap,  Rhodes  of  its 
Colossus,  and  Dionysius  the  First  of  his  ear;  nay,  who 
pretend  that  Cadmus  did  not  come  from  Phoenicia,  that 
Belisarius  was  not  blind,  that  Portia  did  not  swallow 
burning  coals,  and  that  Dionysius  the  Second  never  kept 
a  school  at  Corinth.  Modern  chemists  have  been  unable 
to  discover  how  Hannibal  could  have  leveled  rocks,  or 
Cleopatra  dissolved  pearls  with  vinegar.  A  German  ped- 
ant has  actually  ventured  to  question  the  purity  of  Lu- 
cretia." 

Hayward  (translator  of  Faust),  in  his  article  on  Pearls 
and  Mock  Pearls  of  History,  says,  "  We  are  gravely  told, 
on  historical  authority,  by  Moore,  in  a  note  to  one  of  his 
Irish  Melodies,  that  during  the  reign  of  Br}'an,  King  of 
Munster,  a  young  lady  of  great  beauty,  richly  dressed, 
and  adorned  with  jewels,  undertook  a  journey  from  one 
end  of  the  kingdom  to  another,  with  a  wand  in  her  hand, 
at  the  top  of  which  was  a  ring  of  exceeding  great  value  j 
and  such  was  the  perfection  of  the  laws  and  the  govern- 
ment that  no  attempt  was  made  upon  her  honor,  nor  was 
she  robbed  of  her  clothes  and  jewels.  Precisely  the 
same  story  is  told  of  Alfred,  of  Frothi,  King  of  Denmark, 
and  of  Rollo,  Duke  of  Normandy.  Another  romantic  an- 
ecdote, fluctuating  between  two  or  more  sets  of  actors,  is 
an  episode  in  the  amours  of  Emma,  the  alleged  daugh- 
ter of  Charlemagne,  who,  finding  that  tiie  snow  had  fallen 
thickly  during  a  nightly  interview  with  her  lover,  Egin 


t66  library  notes- 

hard,  took  him  upon  her  shoulders,  and  carried  him  some 
distance  from  her  bower,  to  prevent  his  footsteps  from " 
being  traced.  Unluckily,  Charlemagne  had  no  daughter 
named  Emma  or  Imma  ;  and  a  hundred  years  before  the 
appearance  of  the  chronicle  which  records  the  adventure, 
it  had  been  related  in  pnnt  of  a  German  emperor  and  a 
damsel  unknown.  The  story  of  Canute  commanding  the 
waves  to  roll  back  rests  on  the  authority  of  Henry  of 
Huntingdon,  who  wrote  about  a  hundred  years  after  the 
Danish  monarch.  '  As  for  the  greater  number  of  the 
stories  with  which  the  ana  are  stuffed,'  says  Voltaire,  '  in- 
cluding all  those  humorous  replies  attributed  to  Charles 
the  Fifth  and  Henry  the  Fourth,  to  a  hundred  modern 
princes,  you  find  them  in  Athenaeus  and  in  our  old  au- 
thors.' Dionysius  the  tyrant,  we  are  told  by  Diogenes  of 
Laerte,  treated  his  friends  like  vases  full  of  good  liq- 
uors, which  he  broke  when  he  had  emptied  them.  This 
is  precisely  what  Cardinal  de  Retz  says  of  Madame  de 
Chevreuse's  treatment  of  her  lovers.  There  is  a  story  of 
Sully's  meeting  a  young  lady,  veiled,  and  dressed  in 
green,  on  the  back  stairs  leading  to  Henry's  apartment, 
and  being  asked  by  the  king  whether  he  had  not  been 
told  that  his  majesty  had  a  fever  and  could  not  receive 
that  morning,  replied,  '  Yes,  sire,  but  the  fever  is  gone  ;  I 
have  just  met  it  on  the  staircase,  dressed  in  green.'  This 
story  is  told  of  Demetrius  and  his  father.  The  lesson  of 
perseverance  in  adversity  taught  by  the  spider  to  Robert 
Bruce  is  said  to  have  been  taught  by  the  same  insect  to 
Tamerlane.  'When  Columbus,'  says  Voltaire,  'promised 
a  new  hemisphere,  people  maintained  that  it  did  not  ex- 
ist ;  and  when  he  had  discovered  it,  that  it  had  been 
known  a  long  time.'  It  was  to  confute  such  detractors 
that  he  resorted  to  the  illustration  of  the  egg,  already 
employed  by  Brunelleschi  when  his  merit  in  raising  the 
cupola  of  the  cathedral  of  Florence  was  contested.  I'he 
anecdote    of   Southampton    reading   The   Faery    Queen, 


LIMITS.  167 

whilst  Spenser  was  waiting  in  the  ante-chamber,  may  pair 
off  with  one  of  Louis  XIV.  As  this  munificent  monarch 
was  going  over  the  improvements  of  Versailles  with  Le 
Notre,  the  sight  of  each  fresh  beauty  or  capability  tempts 
him  to  some  fresh  extravagance,  till  the  architect  cries 
out  that  if  their  promenade  is  continued  in  this  fashion 
it  will  end  in  the  bankruptcy  of  the  state.  Southampton, 
after  sending  first  twenty,  and  then  fifty  guineas,  on  com- 
ing to  one  fine  passage  after  another,  exclaims,  'Turn  the 
fellow  out  of  the  house,  or  I  shall  be  ruined.'  On  the 
morning  of  his  execution,  Charles  I.  said  to  his  groom  of 
the  chambers,  '  Let  me  have  a  shirt  on  more  than  ordi- 
nary, by  reason  the  season  is  so  sharp  as  probably  may 
make  me  shake,  which  some  observers  will  imagine  pro- 
ceeds from  fear.  I  would  have  no  such  imputation  ;  I 
fear  not  death.'  As  Bailly  was  waiting  to  be  guillotined, 
one  of  the  executioners  accused  him  of  trembling.  '  I 
am  cold,'  was  the  reply.  Frederick  the  Great  is  reported 
to  have  said,  in  reference  to  a  troublesome  assailant, 
'This  man  wants  me  to  make  a  martyr  of  him,  but  he 
shall  not  have  that  satisfaction.'  Vespasian  told  Deme- 
trius the  Cynic,  'You  do  all  you  can  to  get  me  to  put 
you  to  death,  but  I  do  not  kill  a  dog  for  barking  at 
me.'  This  Demetrius  was  a  man  of  real  spirit  and  hon- 
esty. When  Caligula  tried  to  conciliate  his  good  word 
by  a  large  gift  in  money,  he  sent  it  back  with  the  mes- 
sage, '  If  you  wish  to  bribe  me,  you  must  send  me  your 
crown.'  George  IIL  ironically  asked  an  eminent  divine, 
who  was  just  returned  from  Rome,  whether  he  had  con- 
verted the  pope.  '  No,  sire,  I  had  nothing  better  to  offer 
him.'  Cardinal  Ximenes,  upon  a  muster  which  was  takeii 
against  the  Moors,  was  spoken  to  by  a  servant  of  his  to 
atand  a  little  out  of  the  smoke  of  the  harquebuse,  but  he 
said  again  that  *  that  was  his  incense.'  The  first  time 
Charles  XIL  of  Sweden  was  under  fire,  he  inquired  what 
the  hissing  he  heard  about  his  ears  was,  and  being  told 


1 68  LIBRARY   NOTES 

that  it  was  caused  by  the  musket-balls,  '  Good,'  he  ex- 
claimed, '  this  henceforth  shall  be  my  music'  Pope  Jul- 
ius II.,  like  many  a  would-be  connoisseur,  was  apt  to  ex- 
hibit his  taste  by  fault-finding.  On  his  objecting  that 
one  of  Michel  Angelo's  statues  might  be  improved  by  a 
few  touches  of  the  chisel,  the  artist,  with  the  aid  of  a  few 
pinches  of  marble  dust,  which  he  dropped  adroitly,  con- 
veyed an  impression  that  he  had  acted  on  the  hint. 
When  Halifax  found  fault  with  some  passages  in  Pope's 
translation  of  Homer,  the  poet,  by  the  advice  of  Garth, 
left  them  as  they  stood,  but  told  the  peer  that  they  had 
been  retouched,  and  had  the  satisfaction  of  finding  him 
as  easily  satisfied  as  his  holiness.  When  Lycurgus  was 
to  reform  and  alter  the  state  of  Sparta,  in  the  consulta- 
tion one  advised  that  it  should  be  reduced  to  an  absolute 
popular  equality;  but  Lycurgus  said  to  him,  'Sir,  begin  it 
in  your  own  house.'  Had  Dr.  Johnson  forgotten  this 
among  Bacon's  Apophthegms  when  he  told  Mrs.  Macau- 
lay,  '  Madam,  I  am  now  become  a  convert  to  your  way  of 
thinking.  I  am  convinced  that  all  mankind  are  upon  an 
equal  footing,  and  to  give  you  an  unquestionable  proof, 
madam,  that  I  am  in  earnest,  here  is  a  very  sensible,  civil, 
well-behaved  fellow-citizen,  your  footman ;  I  desire  that 
he  may  be  allowed  to  sit  down  and  dine  with  us' ? "  Bos- 
well  once  said,  "  A  man  is  reckoned  a  wise  man,  rather 
for  what  he  does  not  say,  than  for  what  he  says  :  perhaps 
upon  the  whole  Limbertongue  speaks  a  greater  quantity 
of  good  sense  than  Manly  does,  but  Limbertongue  gives 
you  such  floods  of  frivolous  nonsense  that  his  sense  is 
quite  drowned.  Manly  gives  you  unmixed  good  sense 
only.  Manly  will  always  be  thought  the  wisest  man  of 
the  two."  Corwin,  a  brilliant  wit  and  humorist  of  the 
Sydney  Smith  stamp,  and  in  his  time  the  greatest  of 
American  stump-orators,  was  often  heard  to  say  that  his 
life  was  a  failure,  because  he  had  not  been,  with  the  pub- 
lic, more  successful  in  serious  veins.     A  friend  relates  that 


LIMITS.  169 

he  was  riding  with  him  one  day,  when  Corwin  remarked 
of  a  speech  made  the  evening  before,  "  It  was  very  good 
indeed,  but  in  bad  style.  Never  make  the  people  laugh. 
I  see  that  you  cultivate  that.  It  is  easy  and  captivating, 
but  death  in  the  long  run  to  the  speaker."  "  Why,  Mr. 
Corwin,  you  are  the  last  man  living  I  expected  such  an 
opinion  from."  "  Certainly,  because  you  have  not  lived 
so  long  as  I  have.  Do  you  know,  my  young  friend,  that 
the  world  has  a  contempt  for  the  man  that  entertains  it  ? 
One  must  be  solemn  —  solemn  as  an  ass  —  never  say 
anything  that  is  not  uttered  with  the  greatest  gravity,  to 
win  respect.  The  world  looks  up  to  the  teacher  and 
down  at  the  clov;n  ;  yet,  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  the  clown 
is  the  better  fellow  of  the  two."  Sydney  Smith  is  reported 
to  have  said  to  his  eldest  brother,  a  grave  and  prosperous 
gentleman  :  "  Brother,  you  and  I  are  exceptions  to  the 
laws  of  nature.  You  have  risen  by  your  gravity,  and  I 
have  sunk  by  my  levity."  In  one  of  Steele's  Tatlers, 
Sancroft  asked  the  question,  why  it  was  that  actors, 
speaking  of  things  imaginary,  affected  audiences  as  if 
they  were  real ;  whilst  preachers,  speaking  of  things  real, 
could  only  affect  their  congregations  as  with  things  im- 
aginary. Bickerstaff  answered,  "Why,  indeed,  I  don't 
know ;  unless  it  is  that  we  actors  speak  of  things  imag- 
inary as  if  they  were  real,  while  you  in  the  pulpit  speak 
of  things  real  as  if  they  were  imaginary."  This  answer, 
besides  being  borrowed  by  Betterton,  has  been  credited 
to  every  famous  actor  since  Steele  printed  it.  Every 
reader  of  Charles  Lamb  remembers  his  amusing  essay  on 
the  Origin  of  Roast  Pig.  The  legend  of  the  first  act  of 
oyster-eating  is  enough  like  it  to  remind  one  of  it.  It  is 
related  that  a  man,  walking  one  day  by  the  shore  of  the 
sea,  picked  up  one  of  those  savory  bivalves,  just  as  it  was 
in  the  act  of  gaping.  Observing  the  extreme  smoothness 
of  the  interior  of  the  shells,  he  insinuated  his  fin2:er  that 
he  might  feel  the  shining   surface,  when  suddenly  they 


170  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

closed  upon  the  exploring  digit,  causing  a  sensation  less 
pleasurable  than  he  anticipated.  The  prompt  withdrawal 
of  his  finger  was  scarcely  a  more  natural  movement  than 
its  transfer  to  his  mouth,  when  he  tasted  oyster-juice  for 
the  first  time,  as  the  Chinaman  in  Elia's  essay,  having 
burnt  his  finger,  first  tasted  cracklin.  The  savor  was  de- 
licious, —  he  had  made  a  great  discovery  ;  so  he  picked 
up  the  oyster,  forced  open  the  shells,  banqueted  upon  the 
contents,  and  soon  brought  oyster-eating  into  fashion. 
Nothing,  it  is  said,  puzzled  Bonaparte  more  than  to  meet 
an  honest  man  of  good  sense  ;  he  did  not  know  what  to 
make  of  him.  He  would  offer  him  money ;  if  that  failed, 
he  would  talk  of  glory,  or  promise  him  rank  and  power  ; 
but  if  all  these  temptations  failed,  he  set  him  down  for 
an  idiot,  or  a  half-mad  dreamer.  Conscience  was  a  thing 
he  could  not  understand.  Rulhiere,  who  was  at  St.  Peters- 
burg in  1762,  when  Catherine  caused  her  husband,  Peter 
III.,  to  be  murdered,  wrote  a  history  of  the  transaction 
on  his  return  to  France,  which  was  handed  about  in  man- 
uscript. The  empress  was  informed  of  it,  and  endeav- 
ored to  procure  the  destruction  of  the  work.  Madame 
Geofifrin  was  sent  to  Rulhiere  to  offer  him  a  considerable 
bribe  to  throw  it  into  the  fire.  He  eloquently  remon- 
strated that  it  would  be  a  base  and  cowardly  action, 
which  honor  and  virtue  forbade.  She  heard  him  patiently 
to  the  end,  and  then  calmly  replied,  "  What !  is  n't  it 
enough  ?  "  Lord  Orrery  related  as  an  unquestionable  oc- 
currence that  Swift  once  commenced  the  service,  when  no- 
body except  the  clerk  attended  his  church,  with,  "  Dearly 
beloved  Roger,  the  Scripture  moveth  you  and  me  in  sun- 
dry places."  Mr.  Theophilus  Swift  afterward  discovered 
the  anecdote  in  a  jest-book  which  was  published  before 
his  great  kinsman  was  born.  In  Domenichi's  Facetiae, 
and  other  old  Italian  books,  there  is  this  story  of  Dante. 
The  famous  poet,  returning  home  one  day  out  of  the 
country,  was  overtaken  by  three  gentlemen  of  Florence 


LIMITS.  171 

his  acquaintance  ;  who,  knowing  how  ready  he  was  in  his 
answers,  they  all  three  resolved,  by  way  of  proof,  to  make 
three  successive  attacks  upon  him  in  the  following  man- 
ner. 7'he  first  said  to  him,  "  Good  day,  Master  Dante  ; " 
the  second,  "  Whence  come  you.  Master  Dante }  "  the 
third,  "Are  the  waters  deep,  Master  Dante  ?  "  To  all  of 
which,  without  once  stopping  his  horse,  or  making  the 
least  pause,  he  answered  thus :  "  Good  day,  and  good 
year  ;  From  the  Fair  ;  To  the  very  bottom."  Not  unlike 
this  is  a  story  of  Henry  IV.  of  France,  who  was  over- 
taken upon  the  road  by  a  clergyman  that  was  posting  to 
court ;  the  king,  putting  his  head  out  of  his  coach,  asked 
the  man  in  his  hasty  way,  "  Whence  come  ye  ?  Whither 
go  ye  ?  What  want  ye  ?  "  The  clergyman,  without  any 
ceremony  or  hesitation,  made  answer :  "  From  Blois  ;  To 
Paris;  A  benefice."  With  which  the  king  was  so  well 
pleased,  he  instantly  granted  his  request.  It  is  related 
of  Raphael,  that  one  day,  after  he  had  begun  the  Gala- 
tea, and  was  already  well  advanced  with  it,  while  he  was 
absent  a  visitor  called  to  see  him.  The  scaiToldin^s  were 
around  the  room  preparatory  for  the  other  decorations, 
and  the  visitor,  after  looking  at  the  Galatea  for  a  while, 
mounted  the  ladder,  and  with  a  fragment  of  charcoal 
drew  a  colossal  head  on  the  wall  beneath  the  cornice. 
Raphael  did  not  return,  however,  and  after  waiting  for 
some  time  the  visitor  departed,  refusing  to  give  his  name 
to  the  servant,  but  saying,  "  Show  your  master  that,  and 
he  will  know  who  I  am."  Some  time  after,  Raphael  came 
in,  and  on  inquiring  if  any  one  had  been  there,  his  serv- 
ant told  him  a  small  black-bearded  man  had  been  there 
and  drawn  a  head  on  the  wall  by  which  he  said  he  would 
recognize  him.  Raphael  looked  up,  saw  the  head,  and 
exclaimed,  "  Michel  Angelo !  "  A  similar  story  is  told  of 
Apelles  and  Protogenes.  It  is  told  by  Pliny,  and  the 
point  of  it  is,  that  Apelles,  on  arriving  at  Rhodes,  im- 
mediately went  to  call  upon  Protogenes,  who  was  then 


172  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

living  .here.  Protogenes,  however,  was  absent,  and  the 
studio  was  in  charge  of  an  old  woman,  who,  after  Apel- 
les  had  looked  at  the  pictures,  asked  the  name  of  the  vis- 
itor to  give  to  her  master  on  his  return.  Apelles  divl 
not  answer  at  first,  but  observing  a  large  black  panel  pre- 
pared for  painting  on  an  easel,  he  took  up  a  pencil  and 
drew  an  extremely  delicate  outline  on  it,  saying,  "  He  will 
recognize  me  by  this,"  and  departed.  On  the  return  of 
Protogenes,  being  informed  of  what  had  happened,  he 
looked  at  the  outline,  and,  struck  by  its  extreme  delicacy, 
exclaimed,  "That  is  Apelles  —  no  one  else  could  have 
executed  so  perfect  a  work."  An  anecdote  is  told  of  Sir 
George  Beaumont  going  in  a  coach  to  a  tavern  with  a 
party  of  gay  young  men.  The  waiter  came  to  the  coach 
door  with  a  light,  and  as  he  was  holding  this  up  to  the 
others,  those  who  had  already  got  out  went  round,  and 
getting  in  at  the  opposite  coach-door  came  out  again,  so 
that  there  seemed  to  be  no  end  to  the  procession,  and 
the  waiter  ran  into  the  house,  frightened  out  of  his  wits. 
The  same  story  is  told  of  Swift  and  four  clergymen 
dressed  in  canonicals.  "  Men  of  the  world,"  says  Gold- 
smith, in  one  of  the  papers  of  the  Bee,  "  maintain  that 
the  true  end  of  speech  is  not  so  much  to  express  our  wants 
as  to  conceal  them."  How  often,  said  Irving,  is  this 
quoted  as  one  of  the  subtle  remarks  of  the  fine-witted 
Talleyrand  !  Every  one  remembers  another  familiar  witty 
repartee  attributed  to  the  latter.  When  seated  between 
Madame  de  Stael  and  Madame  Re'camier,  and  pouring 
forth  gallantry,  first  at  the  feet  of  one,  then  of  the  other. 
Madame  de  Stael  suddenly  asked  him  if  she  and  Madame 
Rdcamier  fell  into  the  river,  which  of  the  two  he  would 
save  first  ?  "  Madame,"  replied  Talleyrand,  "  you  could 
swim  !  "  This  pretty  reply  has  been  matched  by  Mrs. 
Jameson  with  one  far  prettier,  and  founded  on  it.  Prince 
S.  was  one  day  loitering  on  the  banks  of  the  Isar,  in  the 
English  garden  at  Munich,  by  the  side  of  the  beautiful 


LIMITS.  173 

Madame  de  V.,  then  the  object  of  his  devoted  admiration. 
For  a  while  he  had  been  speaking  to  her  of  his  mother, 
for  whom  he  had  ever  shown  the  strongest  fiUal  love  and 
respect.  Afterward,  as  they  wandered  on,  he  began  to 
pour  forth  his  soul  to  the  lady  of  his  love  with  all  the 
eloquence  of  passion.  Suddenly  she  turned  and  said  to 
him,  "  If  your  mother  and  myself  were  both  to  fall  into 
this  river,  whom  would  you  save  first  ?  "  "  My  mother," 
he  instantly  replied  ;  and  then,  looking  at  her  expressively, 
immediately  added,  "  To  save  you  first,  would  be  as  if  I 
were  to  save  myself  first."  There  is  yet  another  varia- 
tion. Captain  Morgan,  with  whom  Leslie  crossed  the 
Atlantic,  had  a  good  story  apropos  to  everything  that 
happened,  and  Leslie  has  preserved  a  specimen  of  his 
amusing  inventions.  Single  ladies  often  cross  the  water 
under  the  especial  care  of  the  captain  of  the  ship,  and  if 
a  love  affair  occurs  among  the  passengers,  the  captain  is 
usually  the  confidant  of  one  or  both  parties.  A  very  fas- 
cinating young  lady  was  placed  under  Morgan's  care,  and 
three  young  gentlemen  fell  desperately  in  love  with  her. 
They  were  all  equally  agreeable,  and  the  young  lady  was 
puzzled  which  to  encourage.  She  asked  the  captain's  ad- 
vice. "  Come  on  deck,"  he  said,  "  the  first  day  when  it  is 
perfectly  calm,  —  the  gentlemen  will,  of  course,  all  be  near 
you.  I  will  have  a  boat  quietly  lowered  down  ;  then  do 
you  jump  overboard,  and  see  which  of  the  gentlemen 
will  be  the  first  to  jump  after  you.  I  will  take  care 
of  you."  A  calm  day  soon  came,  the  captain's  sugges- 
tion was  followed,  and  two  of  the  lovers  jumped  after 
the  lady  at  the  same  instant.  But  between  these  two 
the  lady  could  not  decide,  so  exactly  equal  had  been 
their  devotion.  She  again  consulted  the  captain.  "  Take 
the  man  that  did  n't  jump  ;  he  's  the  most  sensible  fel- 
low, and  will  make  the  best  husband."  A  sculptor  re- 
lates an  incident  of  General  Scott,  of  whom  he  once 
made  a  bust.    Having  a  fine  subject  to  start  with,  he  sue- 


174  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

ceeded  in  giving  great  satisfaction.  At  the  last  sitting 
he  attempted  to  refine  and  elaborate  the  lines  and  mark- 
ings of  the  face.  The  general  sat  patiently ;  but  when 
he  came  to  see  the  result,  his  countenance  indicated 
decided  displeasure.  "  Why,  sir,  what  have  you  been 
doing?"  he  asked.  "Oh,"  answered  the  sculptor,  "not 
much,  I  confess  ;  I  have  been  working  out  the  details  of 
the  face  a  little  more,  this  morning."  "  Details  ? "  ex- 
claimed the  general  warmly;  " the  details!     Why, 

man,  you  are  spoiling  the  bust !  "  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 
once  went  wath  one  of  his  pupils  to  see  a  celebrated 
painting.  After  viewing  it  for  a  while,  the  young  man 
gave  it  as  his  deliberate  opinion  that  the  picture  "  needed 
finishing."  "  Finishing  ?  "  exclaimed  Sir  Joshua,  a  little 
impatiently  ;  "  finishing  would  only  spoil  the  painting." 
Judge  Rodgers  related  a  death-bed  incident  of  a  neigh- 
bor of  his,  —  a  poor  honest  Scotsman,  a  wood-sav/yer,  — 
whose  admiration  and  solace,  all  through  his  hard  life, 
had  been  Scotia's  great  poet.  The  good  man,  worn  out 
and  weary,  was  told  by  his  physician  that  his  last  hour 
had  come  —  that  he  must  soon  die.  He  received  the 
announcement  philosophically,  and  after  naming  a  few 
things  for  which  he  expressed  a  desire  to  live,  he  said  to 
the  judge  —  about  the  last  thing  he  said  on  earth,  "  Yes  ; 
for  these  things  I  should  like  to  live  ;  but — but  —  judge 
—  (they  had  many  a  time  read  the  poet  together)  —  I 
shall  see  —  Burns  !  "  Socrates,  upon  receiving  sentence 
of  death,  said,  amongst  other  things,  to  his  judges,  "  Is 
this,  do  you  think,  no  happy  journey?  Do  you  think  it 
nothing  to  speak  with  Orpheus,  Musaeus,  Homer,  and 
Hesiod  ?  "  "  Shakespeare's  Joan  of  Arc,"  says  Hayward, 
"  is  a  mere  embodiment  of  English  prejudice ;  yet  it  is 
not  much  further  from  the  truth  than  Schiller's  transcend- 
ental and  exquisitely  poetical  character  of  the  maid. 
The  German  dramatist  has  also  idealized  Don  Carlos  to 
an  extent  that  renders  recognition  difficult ;  and  he  has 


LIMITS.  175 

flung  a  halo  round  William  Tell  which  will  cling  to  the 
name  while  Switzerland  is  a  country  or  patriotism  any 
better  than  a  name.  Yet  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago 
the  eldest  son  of  Haller  undertook  to  prove  that  the 
legend,  in  its  main  features,  is  the  revival  or  imitation  of 
a  Danish  one,  to  be  found  in  Saxo  Grammaticus.  The 
canton  of  Uri,  to  which  Tell  belonged,  ordered  the  book 
to  be  publicly  burnt,  and  appealed  to  the  other  cantons 
to  cooperate  in  its  suppression,  thereby  giving  additional 
interest  and  vitality  to  the  question,  which  has  been  at 
length  pretty  well  exhausted  by  German  writers.  The 
upshot  is  that  the  episode  of  the  apple  is  relegated  to  the 
domain  of  the  fable ;  and  that  Tell  himself  is  grudgingly 
allowed  a  commonplace  share  in  the  exploits  of  the  early 
Swiss  patriots.  Strange  to  say,  his  name  is  not  men- 
tioned by  any  contemporary  chronicler  of  the  struggle  for 
independence.  Sir  A.  Callcott's  picture  of  Milton  and 
his  Daughters,  one  of  whom  holds  a  pen  as  if  writing  to 
his  dictation,  is  in  open  defiance  of  Dr.  Johnson's  state- 
ment that  the  daughters  were  never  taught  to  write. 
There  is  the  story  of  Poussin  impatiently  dashing  his 
sponge  against  his  canvas,  and  producing  the  precise 
effect  (the  foam  on  a  horse's  mouth)  which  he  had  been 
long  and  vainly  laboring  for ;  and  there  is  a  similar  one 
told  of  Haydn,  the  musical  composer,  when  required  to 
imitate  a  storm  at  sea.  He  kept  tn'ing  all  sorts  of  pas- 
sages, ran  up  and  down  the  scale,  and  exhausted  his 
ingenuity  in  heaping  together  chromatic  intervals  and 
strange  discords.  Still  Curtz  (the  author  of  the  libretto) 
was  not  satisfied.  At  last  the  musician,  out  of  all  pa- 
ience,  extended  his  hands  to  the  two  extremities  of  the 
R«ys,  and,  bringing  them  rapidly  together,  exclaimed, 
'  The  deuce  take  the  tempest ;  I  can  make  nothing  of  it.' 
'That  is  the  very  thing,'  exclaimed  Curtz,  delighted  with 
the  truth  of  the  representation.  Neither  Haydn  nor 
Curtz  had  ever  seen  the  sea.     Sir  David  Brewster,  in  his 


176  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

life  of  Newton,  says  that  neither  Pemberton  nor  Whis* 
ton,  who  received  from  Newton  himself  the  history  of  his 
first  ideas  of  gravity,  records  the  story  of  the  falling  ap- 
ple. It  was  mentioned,  however,  to  Voltaire  by  Catherine 
Barton,  Newton's  niece,  and  to  Mr.  Green  by  Mr.  Martin 
Folkes,  the  President  of  the  Royal  Society.  *  We  saw  the 
apple-tree  in  18 14,  and  brought  away  a  portion  of  one  of 
its  roots.'  The  concluding  remark  reminds  us  of  Wash- 
ington Irving's  hero,  who  boasted  of  having  parried  a 
musket  bullet  with  a  small  sword,  in  proof  of  which  he 
exhibited  the  sword  a  little  bent  in  the  hilt.  The  apple  is 
supposed  to  have  fallen  in  1665.  Father  Prout  (Mahony) 
translated  several  of  the  Irish  Melodies  into  Greek  and 
Latin  verse,  and  then  jocularly  insinuated  a  charge  of 
plagiarism  against  the  author.  Moore  was  exceedingly 
annoyed,  and  remarked  to  a  friend  who  made  light  of  the 
trick,  '  This  is  all  very  well  for  your  London  critics ;  but, 
let  me  tell  you,  my  reputation  for  originality  has  been 
gravely  impeached  in  the  provincial  newspapers  on  the 
strength  of  these  very  imitations.'  "  Dr.  Johnson's  Latin 
translation  of  the  Messiah  was  published  in  1731,  and 
Pope  is  reported  to  have  said,  "  The  writer  of  this  poem 
will  leave  it  a  question  for  posterity,  whether  his  or  mine 
be  the  original."  Trench,  in  a  note  to  one  of  his  Hul- 
sean  lectures,  says,  "  There  is  a  curious  account  of  a 
fraud  which  was  played  off  on  Voltaire,  connecting  itself 
with  a  singular  piece  of  literary  forgery.  A  Jesuit  mis- 
sionary, whose  zeal  led  him  to  assume  the  appearance  of 
an  Indian  fakir,  in  the  beginning  of  the  last  century 
forged  a  Veda,  of  which  the  purport  was  secretly  to  un- 
dermine the  religion  which  it  professed  to  support,  and 
so  to  facilitate  the  introduction  of  Christianity  —  to  ad- 
vance, that  is,  the  kingdom  of  truth  with  a  lie.  This 
forged  Veda  is  full  of  every  kind  of  error  or  ignorance  in 
regard  to  the  Indian  religion.  After  lying,  however,  long 
in  a  Romanist  missionary  college  at  Pondicherry,  it  found 


LIMITS.  177 

its  way  to  Europe,  and  a  transcript  of  it  came  into  the 
hands  of  Voltaire,  who  eagerly  used  it  for  the  purpose  of 
depreciating  the  Christian  books,  and  showing  how  many 
of  their  doctrines  had  been  anticipated  by  the  wisdom  of 
the  East.  The  book  had  thus  an  end  worthy  of  its  be- 
ginning." 

Wendell  Phillips,  in  his  lecture  upon  the  Lost  Arts, 
made  some  remarkable  statements,  to  prove  the  superior- 
ity of  the  ancients  in  many  things.  "  In  every  matter," 
he  said,  "that  relates  to  invention  —  to  use,  or  beauty,  or 
form  —  we  are  borrowers.  You  may  glance  around  the 
furniture  of  the  palaces  of  Europe,  and  you  may  gather 
all  these  utensils  of  art  or  use,  and  when  you  have  fixed 
the  shape  and  forms  in  your  mind,  I  will  take  you  into  the 
Museum  of  Naples,  which  gathers  all  remains  of  the  do- 
mestic life  of  the  Romans,  and  you  shall  not  find  a  single 
one  of  these  modern  forms  of  art,  or  beauty,  or  use,  that 
was  not  anticipated  there.     We  have  hardly  added  one 

single  line  or  sweep  of  beauty  to  the  antique I 

had  heard  that  nothing  had  been  observed  in  ancient 
times  which  could  be  called  by  the  name  of  glass ;  that 
there  had  been  merely  attempts  to  imitate  it.  In  Pompeii, 
a  dozen  miles  south  of  Naples,  which  was  covered  with 
ashes  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  they  broke  into  a  room 
full  of  glass ;  there  was  ground  glass,  window  glass,  cut 
glass,  and  colored  glass  of  every  variety.  It  was  undoubt- 
edly a  glass-maker's  factory Their   imitations  of 

gems  deceived  not  only  the  lay  people,  but  the  connois- 
seurs were  also  cheated.  Some  of  these  imitations  in 
later  years  have  been  discovered.  The  celebrated  vase 
of  the  Geneva  cathedral  was  considered  a  solid  emerald. 
The  Roman  Catholic  legend  of  it  was  that  it  was  one  of 
the  treasures  that  the  Queen  of  Sheba  gave  to  Solomon, 
and  that  it  was  the  identical  cup  out  of  which  the  Saviour 
ate  the  Last  Supper.  Columbus  must  have  admired  it. 
It  was  venerable  in  his  day ;  it  was  death  at  that  time  for 
12 


178  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

anybody  to  touch  it  but  a  Catholic  priest.  And  when 
Napoleon  besieged  Genoa  it  was  offered  by  the  Jews  to 
loan  the  senate  three  millions  of  dollars  on  that  single 
article  as  security.  Napoleon  took  it  and  carried  it  to 
France,  and  gave  it  to  the  Institute.  In  a  fool's  nightj 
somewhat  reluctantly,  the  scholars  said,  '  It  is  not  a  stone , 
we  hardly  know  what  it  is.'  Cicero  said  he  had  seen  the 
entire  Iliad,  which  is  a  poem  as  large  as  the  New  Testa- 
ment, written  on  skin  so  that  it  could  be  rolled  up  in  the 
compass  of  a  nut-shell.  Now  this  is  imperceptible  to  the 
ordinary  eye.  You  have  seen  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence in  the  compass  of  a  quarter  of  a  dollar,  written 
with  the  aid  of  glasses.  I  have  a  paper  at  home  as  long  as 
half  my  hand,  on  which  was  photographed  the  whole  con- 
tents of  a  London  newspaper.  It  was  put  under  a  dove's 
wing  and  sent  into  Paris,  where  they  enlarged  it  and  read 
the  news.     That  copy  of  the  Iliad  must  have  been  made 

by  some  such  process You  may  visit  Dr.  Abbott's 

Museum,  where  you  will  see  the  ring  of  Cheops.  Bunsen 
puts  him  at  five  hundred  years  before  Christ.  The  signet 
of  the  ring  is  about  the  size  of  a  quarter  of  a  dollar,  and 
the  engraving  is  invisible  without  the  aid  of  glasses.  No 
man  was  ever  shown  into  the  cabinet  of  gems  in  Italy 
without  being  furnished  with  a  microscope  to  look  at  them. 
It  would  be  idle  for  him  to  look  at  them  without  one 
He  could  n't  appreciate  the  delicate  lines  and  the  expres- 
sion of  the  faces.  If  you  go  to  Parma,  they  will  show 
you  a  gem  once  worn  on  the  finger  of  Michel  Angelo,  of 
which  the  engraving  is  two  thousand  years  old,  on  which 
there  are  the  figures  of  seven  women.  You  must  have 
the  aid  of  a  glass  in  order  to  distinguish  the  forms  at  all. 
I  have  a  friend  who  has  a  ring,  perhaps  three  quarters  of 
an  inch  in  diameter,  and  on  it  is  the  naked  figure  of  the 
god  Hercules.  By  the  aid  of  glasses  you  can  distin- 
guish the  interlacing  muscles,  and  count  every  separate 
hair  on  the  eyebrows.     Layard  savs  he  would  be  unable 


LIMITS.  179 

to  read  the  engravings  on  Nineveh  without  strong  specta- 
cles, they  are  so  extremely  small.  Rawlinson  brought 
home  a  stone  about  twenty  inches  long  and  ten  inches 
wide,  containing  an  entire  treatise  on  mathematics.  It 
would  be  perfectly  illegible  without  glasses.  Now,  if  we 
are  unable  to  read  it  without  the  aid  of  glasses,  you  may 
suppose  the  man  who  engraved  it  had  pretty  good  specta- 
cles. So  the  microscope,  instead  of  dating  from  our  time, 
finds  its  brothers  in  the  Books  of  Moses  —  and  these  are 
infant  brothers."  Speaking  of  colors,  he  said,  "The 
burned  city  of  Pompeii  was  a  city  of  stucco.  All  the  houses 
are  stucco  outside,  and  it  is  stained  with  Tyrian  purple  — 
the  royal  color  of  antiquity.  But  you  can  never  rely  on 
the  name  of  a  color  after  a  thousand  years,  so  the  Tyrian 
purple  is  almost  a  red.  This  is  a  city  of  all  red.  It  had 
been  buried  seventeen  hundred  years,  and,  if  you  take  a 
shovel  now  and  clear  away  the  ashes,  this  color  flames  up 
upon  you  a  great  deal  richer  than  anything  we  can  pro- 
duce. You  can  go  down  into  the  narrow  vault  which 
Nero  built  him  as  a  retreat  from  the  great  heat,  and  you 
will  find  the  walls  painted  all  over  with  fanciful  designs 
in  arabesque,  which  have  been  buried  beneath  the  earth 
fifteen  hundred  years ;  but  when  the  peasants  light  it  up 
with  their  torches,  the  colors  flash  out  before  you  as  fresh 
as  they  were  in  the  days  of  St.  Paul.  Page,  the  artist, 
spent  twelve  years  in  Venice,  studying  Titian's  method  of 
mixing  his  colors,  and  he  thinks  he  has  got  it.  Yet  come 
down  from  Titian,  whose  colors  are  wonderfully  and  per- 
fectly fresh,  to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  and,  although  his  col- 
ors are  not  yet  a  hundred  years  old,  they  are  fading  ;  the 
color  on  his  lips  is  dying  out,  and  the  cheeks  are  losing 
their  tints.     He  did  not  know  how  to  mix  well.     And  his 

mastery  of  color  is  as  yet  unequaled The  French 

have  a  theory  that  there  is  a  certain  delicate  shade  of  blue 
that  Europeans  cannot  see.  In  one  of  his  lectures  to  his 
students,  Ruskin  opened  his  Catholic  mass-book  and  said. 


l80  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

'  Gentlemen,  we  are  the  best  chemists  in  the  world.  No 
Englishman  ever  could  doubt  that.  But  we  cannot  make 
such  a  scarlet  as  that,  and  even  if  we  could,  it  would  not 
last  for  twenty  years.  Yet  this  is  five  hundred  years  old.' 
The  Frenchman  says,  '  I  am  the  best  dyer  in  Europe  ; 
nobody  can  equal  me,  and  nobody  can  surpass  Lyons.' 
Yet  in  Cashmere,  where  the  girls  make  shawls  worth  thirty 
thousand  dollars,  they  will  show  him  three  hundred  dis- 
tinct colors  which  he  not  only  cannot  make  but  cannot 
even  distinguish Mr.  Colton,  of  the  Boston  Jour- 
nal, the  first  week  he  landed  in  Asia,  found  that  his  chro- 
nometer was  out  of  order  from  the  steel  of  the  works 
having  become  rusted.  The  London  Medical  and  Surgi- 
cal Journal  advises  surgeons  not  to  venture  to  carry  any 
lancets  to  Calcutta ;  to  have  them  gilded,  because  Eng- 
lish steel  could  not  bear  the  atmosphere  of  India.  Yet 
the  Damascus  blades  of  the  Crusades  were  not  gilded, 
and  they  are  as  perfect  as  they  were  eight  centuries  ago. 
....  If  a  London  chronometer-maker  wants  the  best 
steel  to  use  in  his  chronometer,  he  does  not  send  to  Shef- 
field, the  centre  of  all  science,  but  to  the  Punjaub,  the 
empire  of  the  five  rivers,  where  there  is  no  science  at  all. 
....  Scott,  in  his  Crusaders,  describes  a  meeting  be- 
tAveen  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion  and  Saladin.  Saladin  asks 
Richard  to  show  him  the  wonderful  strength  for  which 
he  is  famous,  and  the  Norman  monarch  responds  by  sever- 
ing a  bar  of  iron  which  lies  on  the  floor  of  the  tent.  Sala- 
din says,  '  I  cannot  do  that ; '  but  he  takes  an  eider-down 
pillow  from  the  sofa,  and  drawing  his  keen  blade  across 
it,  it  falls  in  two  pieces.  Richard  says,  '  This  is  the  black 
art ;  it  is  magic  ;  it  is  the  devil ;  you  cannot  cut  that  which 
has  no  resistance  ; '  and  Saladin,  to  show  him  that  such 
is  not  the  case,  takes  a  scarf  from  his  shoulders,  which  is 
so  light  that  it  almost  floats  in  the  air,  and,  tossing  it  up, 
severs  it  before  it  can  descend.  George  Thompson  saw 
a  man  in  Calcutta  throw  a  handful  of  floss  silk  into  the 


LIMITS  l8l 

air,  and  a  Hindoo  sever  it  into  pieces  with  his  sabre 

Mr.  Batterson,  of  Hartford,  walking  with  Brunei,  the  archi- 
tect of  the  Thames  Tunnel,  in  Egypt,  asked  him  what  he 
thought  of  the  mechanical  power  of  the  Egyptians,  and 
he  said,  '  There  is  Pompey's  Pillar  ;  it  is  one  hundred 
feet  high,  and  the  capital  weighs  two  thousand  pounds. 
It  is  something  of  a  feat  to  hang  two  thousand  poimds 
at  that  height  in  the  air,  and  the  few  men  that  can  do 
it  would  better  discuss  Egyptian  mechanics.'  ....  We 
have  only  just  begun  to  understand  ventilation  properly 
for  our  houses,  yet  late  experiments  at  the  pyramids  in 
Egypt  show  that  those  Egyptian  tombs  were  ventilated  in 
the  most  perfect  and  scientific  manner.  Again,  cement 
is  modern,  for  the  ancients  dressed  and  jointed  their 
stones  so  closely  that  in  buildings  thousands  of  years  old 
the  thin  blade  of  a  penknife  cannot  be  forced  between 
them.  The  railroad  dates  back  to  Egypt.  Arago  has 
claimed  that  they  had  a  knowledge  of  steam.  Bramah 
acknowledges  that  he  took  the  idea  of  his  celebrated  lock 
from  an  ancient  Egyptian  pattern.  De  Tocqueville  says 
there  was  no  social  question  that  was  not  discussed  to 
rags  in  Egypt." 

Humboldt,  in  his  Cosmos,  states  that  the  Chinese  had 
magnetic  carriages  with  which  to  guide  themselves  across 
the  great  plains  of  Tartary,  one  thousand  years  before 
our  era,  on  the  principle  of  the  compass.  The  Romans 
used  movable  types  to  mark  their  pottery  and  indorse 
their  books.  Layard  found  in  Nineveh  a  magnifying  lens 
of  rock  crystal,  which  Sir  David  Brewster  considers  a 
true  optical  lens,  and  the  origin  of  the  microscope.  Ex- 
periments foreshadowing  photography,  giving  remarkable 
results,  began  to  be  made  more  than  three  centuries  ago, 
and  more  than  two  and  a  half  centuries  before  Daguerre. 
The  principle  of  the  stereoscope,  invented  by  Professor 
Wheatstone,  was  known  to  Euclid,  described  by  Galen 
fifteen  hundred  years  ago,  and  more  fully  long  afterward 


1 82  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

in  the  works  of  Giambattista  Porta.  The  Thames  Tun- 
nel, thought  such  a  novelty,  was  anticipated  by  that  under 
the  Euphrates  at  Babylon. 

"  It  is  usually  attributed  to  Aristotle,  indeed,  as  his 
peculiar  glory,"  says  an  authority  on  mental  philosophy, 
"  that  he  should  at  once  have  originated,  and  brought  to 
perfection,  a  science  which,  for  more  than  two  thousand 
years,  has  received  few  alterations,  found  few  minds  ca- 
pable of  suggesting  improvements.  Recent  labors  of 
Orientalists  have,  however,  brought  to  light  the  fact  that 
in  India,  long  before  the  palmy  days  of  Grecian  philoso- 
phy, logic  was  pursued  with  vigor  as  a  study  and  science. 
The  Nyaya  of  Gotama  holds,  in  the  Indian  systems  of 
philosophy,  much  the  same  place  the  Organon  of  Aris- 
totle holds  with  us.  The  two,  however,  are  quite  inde- 
pendent of  each  other.  Aristotle  was  no  disciple  of  Go- 
tama." 

The  so-called  modern  manifestations  of  spiritualism, 
as  table-turning  and  direct  spirit-writing,  have  been  prac- 
ticed in  China  from  time  immemorial ;  they  have  been 
known  there  at  least  from  the  days  of  Lao-tse,  and  he 
was  an  aged  man  when  Confucius  was  a  youth,  between 
five  and  six  centuries  before  the  Christian  era.  Those 
who  have  read  the  travels  in  Thibet  of  the  two  Lazarite 
monks.  Hue  and  Gabet,  will  recall  many  illustrations  of 
spiritualism  from  their  pages  ;  and  here,  too,  as  in  China, 
these  practices  date  from  a  very  remote  time.  M.  Tscher- 
panofT  published,  in  1858,  at  St.  Petersburg,  the  results 
of  his  investigations  with  the  Lamas  of  Thibet.  He  at- 
tests (having  been  a  witness  in  one  or  two  cases)  "  that 
the  Lamas,  when  applied  to  for  the  recovery  of  stolen  or 
hidden  things,  take  a  little  table,  put  one  hand  on  it,  and 
aftir  nearly  half  an  hour  the  table  is  lifted  up  by  an  in- 
visible power,  and  is  (with  the  hand  of  the  Lama  always 
on  it)  carried  to  the  place  where  the  thing  in  question  is 
to  be  found,  whether  in  or  out  of  doors,  where  it  drops, 


LIMITS.  183 

generally  indicating  exactly  the  spot  where  the  article  is 
to  be  found,"  Mesmerism  is  not  new.  Amongst  Egyp- 
tian sculptures  are  people  in  the  various  attitudes  which 
mesmerism  in  modem  times  induces.  The  Hebrews 
knew  something  of  this  science,  for  Baalam  manifestly 
consulted  a  clairvoyant  —  a  man  in  a  "trance  with  his 
eyes  open."  The  Greeks  also  had  a  knowledge  of  it. 
In  Taylor's  Plato  it  is  said  a  man  appeared  before  Aiis- 
totle  in  the  Lyceum,  who  could  read  on  one  side  of  a 
brazen  shield  what  was  written  on  the  other.  The  Ro- 
mans were  not  ignorant  of  it,  for  Plautus,  in  one  of  his 
plays,  asks,  "  What,  and  although  I  were  by  my  continual 
slow  touch  to  make  him  as  if  asleep  ? " 

As  to  social  science,  here  is  the  germ  of  Fourierism,  in 
the  Confessions  of  Augustine,  Bishop  of  Hippo,  fifteen 
hundred  years  before  Fourier :  "  And  many  of  us  friends, 
conferring  about  and  detesting  the  turbulent  turmoil  of 
human  life,  had  debated  and  now  almost  resolved  on  liv- 
ing apart  from  business  and  the  bustle  of  men ;  and  this 
was  to  be  thus  obtained  :  we  were  to  bring  whatever  we 
might  severally  possess,  and  make  one  household  of  all ; 
so  that  through  the  truth  of  our  friendship  nothing  should 
belong  especially  to  any,  but  the  whole,  thus  derived  from 
all,  should  as  a  whole  belong  to  each,  and  all  to  all.  We 
thought  there  might  be  some  ten  persons  in  this  society ; 
some  of  us  very  rich,  especially  Romanianus,  our  towns- 
man, from  childhood  a  very  familiar  friend  of  mine,  whom 
the  grievous  perplexities  of  his  affairs  had  brought  up  to 
court.  He  was  the  most  earnest  for  this  project ;  and 
his  voice  was  of  great  weight,  because  his  ample  estate 
far  exceeded  any  of  the  rest.  We  had  settled,  also,  that 
two  annual  officers,  as  it  were,  should  provide  all  things 
necessary,  the  rest  being  undisturbed.  But  when  we  be- 
gan to  consider  whether  the  wives,  which  some  of  us 
already  had,  and  others  hoped  to  have,  would  allow  this, 
all   that  plan,  which  was  being  so  well  moulded,  fell  to 


1 84  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

pieces  in  our  hands,  and  was  utterly  dashed  and  cast 
aside.  Thence  we  betook  us  to  sighs  and  groans,  and  to 
follow  the  broad  and  beaten  ways  of  the  world." 

In  this  beautiful  passage  from  the  Gulistan,  or  Rose 
Garden,  of  Saadi,  written  more  than  seven  centuries  ago, 
will  be  found  an  incomparable  recipe  for  a  famous  hot- 
weather  drink,  much  affected  by  Americans.  Heliogab- 
d.lus  would  have  given  a  slice  of  his  empire  for  that  one 
immortal  cobbler.  "  I  recollect,"  says  the  poet,  "that  in 
my  youth,  as  I  was  passing  through  a  street,  I  cast  my 
eyes  on  a  beautiful  girl.  It  was  in  the  autumn,  when  the 
heat  dried  up  all  moisture  from  the  mouth,  and  the  sul- 
try  wind  made  the  marrow  boil  in  the  bones ;  so  that,  be- 
ing uiiable  to  support  the  sun's  powerful  beams,  I  was 
obliged  to  take  shelter  under  the  shade  of  a  wall  in 
hopes  that  some  one  would  relieve  me  from  the  distress- 
ing heat  of  summer,  and  quench  my  thirst  with  a  draught 
of  water.  Suddenly  from  the  shade  of  the  portico  of  a 
house  I  beheld  a  female  form,  whose  beauty  it  is  impossi- 
ble for  the  tongue  of  eloquence  to  describe ;  insomuch 
that  it  seemed  as  if  the  dawn  was  rising  in  the  obscurity 
of  night,  or  as  if  the  water  of  immortality  was  issuing 
from  the  land  of  darkness.  She  held  in  her  hand  a  cup 
of  snow-water,  into  which  she  sprinkled  sugar,  and  mixed 
it  with  the  juice  of  the  grape.  I  know  not  whether  what 
I  perceived  was  the  fragrance  of  rose-water,  or  that  she 
had  infused  into  it  a  few  drops  from  the  blossom  of  her 
cheek.  In  short,  I  received  the  cup  from  her  beauteous 
hand,  and  drinking  the  contents,  found  myself  restored 
to  new  life.  The  thirst  of  my  heart  is  not  such  that  it 
can  be  allayed  with  a  drop  of  pure  water ;  the  streams 
of  whole  rivers  would  not  satisfy  it.  How  happy  is  that 
fortunate  person  whose  eyes  every  morning  may  behold 
such  a  countenance.  He  who  is  intoxicated  with  wine 
will  be  sober  again  in  the  course  of  the  night ;  but  he 
who  is  intoxicated  by  the  cup-bearer  will  not  recover  his 
senses  until  the  day  of  judgment." 


LIMITS.  185 

Cicero  maintained  the  doctrine  of  universal  brother- 
hood as  distinctly  as  it  was  afterward  maintained  by  the 
Christian  Church.     "  Men  were  born,"  he  says,  "  for  the 

sake  of  men,  that  each  should  assist  the  others 

Nature  ordains  that  a  man  should  wish  the  good  of  every 
man,  whoever  he  may  be,  for  this  very  reason,  that  he  is 
a  man.  ,  .  ,  .  Nature  has  inclined  us  to  love  men,  and 
this  is  the  foundation  of  the  law."  Marcus  Aurelius 
crystallized  the  "  idea "  of  free  government  in  one  re- 
markable passage  :  "  The  idea  of  a  polity  in  which  there 
is  the  same  law  for  all,  a  polity  administered  with  regard 
to  equal  rights  and  equal  freedom  of  speech,  and  the  idea 
of  a  kingly  government  which  respects  most  of  all  the 
freedom  of  the  governed."  And  here  is  the  idea  of  for- 
giveness of  injuries,  by  Epictetus  :  "  Every  man  has  two 
handles,  one  of  which  will  bear  taking  hold  of,  the  other 
not.  If  thy  brother  sin  against  thee,  lay  not  hold  of  the 
matter  by  this,  that  he  sins  against  thee :  for  by  this 
handle  the  matter  will  not  bear  taking  hold  of.  But 
rather  lay  hold  of  it  by  this,  that  he  is  thy  brother,  thy 
born  mate  j  and  thou  wilt  take  hold  of  it  by  what  will 
bear  handling."  Here,  too,  is  the  idea  of  the  Golden 
Rule,  by  Confucius,  five  hundred  years  before  our  era : 
"  To  have  enough  empire  over  one's  self,  in  order  to 
judge  of  others  by  comparison  with  ourselves,  and  to  act 
toward  them  as  we  would  wish  that  one  should  act  to- 
ward us  —  that  is  what  we  can  call  the  doctrine  of  hu- 
manity. There  is  nothing  beyond  it."  And  this  is  the 
prayer  claimed  to  have  been  in  use  by  religious  Jews  for 
nearly  four  thousand  years,  found  by  our  Lord,  improved 
by  Him,  and  adopted  for  the  use  of  Christians  in  all 
time :  "  Our  Father  who  art  in  Heaven,  be  gracious  unto 
us  !  O  Lord  our  God,  hallowed  be  thy  name,  and  let 
the  remembrance  of  Thee  be  glorified  in  heaven  above  and 
in  the  earth  here  below  !  Let  thy  kingdom  rule  over  us 
now  and  forever  !     Remit  and  forgive  unto  all  men  what- 


1 86  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

ever  they  have  done  against  me  !  And  lead  us  not  into 
the  power  (hands)  of  temptation,  but  deliver  us  from  the 
evil.  For  thine  is  the  kingdom,  and  thou  shalt  reign  in 
glory  forever  and  ever  more."  Now  hear  the  saying  of 
King  Solomon  —  wiser  than  Confucius,  or  Cicero,  or  Mar- 
cus Aurelius,  or  Epictetus,  or  any  rabbi :  "  The  thing  that 
hath  been  is  that  which  shall  be,  and  there  is  no  new 
thing  under  the  sun." 


VII. 

INCONGRUITY. 

"  How  contradictory  it  seems,"  remarked  Washington 
Irving,  writing  of  Oliver  Goldsmith,  *'  that  one  of  the 
most  delightful  pictures  of  home  and  homefelt  happiness 
should  be  drawn  by  a  homeless  man ;  that  the  most  ami- 
able picture  of  domestic  virtue  and  all  the  endearments 
of  the  married  state  should  be  drawn  by  a  bachelor  who 
had  been  severed  from  domestic  life  almost  from  boy- 
hood :  that  one  of  the  most  tender,  touching,  and  affect- 
ing appeals  on  behalf  of  female  loveliness  should  have 
been  made  by  a  man  whose  deficiencies  in  all  the  graces 
of  person  and  manner  seemed  to  mark  him  out  for  a  cyn- 
ical disparager  of  the  sex."  Byron  thought  it  contradic- 
tory that  the  ancients,  in  their  mythology,  should  have 
represented  Wisdom  by  a  woman,  and  Love  by  a  boy. 
"  Don't  you  know,"  urged  Sydney  Smith,  "  as  the  French 
say,  there  are  three  sexes  —  men,  women,  and  clergy- 
men ? "  In  the  old  church  at  Hatfield,  in  England, 
amongst  the  antiquities,  there  is  a  recumbent  statue, 
which  every  one  believed  was  a  woman,  till  Flaxman,  the 
sculptor,  examined  it,  and  satisfied  himself  that  it  was  a 
priest.  Madame  De  Stael's  Delphine  was  thought  to 
contain  a  representation  of  Talleyrand  in  the  character 
of  an  old  woman.  On  her  pressing  for  his  opinion  of 
that  work,  he  said,  "  That  is  the  work  —  is  it  not  ?  —  in 
which  you  and  I  are  exhibited  in  the  disguise  of  fe- 
males ? "  Bulwer  seemed  to  Harriet  Martineau  "  a 
woman  of  genius,  inclosed  by  misadventure  in  a  man's 
form."     A  lady,  speaking  of  the  works  of  the  poet  Thorn- 


1 88  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

son,  observed  that  she  could  gather  from  his  writings 
three  parts  of  his  character  :  that  he  was  an  ardent  lover, 
a  great  swimmer,  and  rigorously  abstinent.  Savage,  to 
whom  the  remark  was  addressed,  assured  her  that,  in  re- 
gard to  the  first,  she  was  altogether  mistaken  ;  for  the 
second,  his  friend  was  perhaps  never  in  cold  water  in  his 
life ;  and  as  to  the  third,  he  indulged  in  every  luxury  that 
came  within  his  reach.  Holmes  states,  in  the  preface  to 
Elsie  Venner,  that  while  the  story  was  in  progress,  he 
received  the  most  startling  confirmation  of  the  possibility 
of  the  existence  of  a  character  like  that  he  had  drawn  as 
a  purely  imaginary  conception.  Mrs.  Hawthorne  said 
that  men  who  had  committed  great  crimes,  or  whose 
memories  held  tragic  secrets,  would  sometimes  write  to 
her  husband,  or  even  come  great  distances  to  see  him, 
and  unburden  their  souls.  This  was  after  the  publica- 
tion of  The  Scarlet  Letter,  which  made  them  regard  him 
as  the  father  confessor  for  all  hidden  sins.  The  Sweden- 
borgians  informed  Poe  that  they  had  discovered  all  that 
he  said  in  a  magazine  article,  entitled  Mesmeric  Revela- 
tions, to  be  absolutely  true,  although  at  first  they  were 
very  strongly  inclined  to  doubt  his  veracity,  —  a  thing 
which,  in  that  particular  instance,  he  never  dreamed  of 
not  doubting  himself.  Lord  Lansdowne  and  Sydney 
Smith,  with  a  companion  or  two,  went  incognito  to  De- 
ville,  the  phrenologist  in  the  Strand,  to  have  their  charac- 
ters read  from  their  skulls,  and  were  most  perversely  in- 
terpreted. Lord  Lansdowne  was  pronounced  to  be  so 
absorbed  in  generalization  as  to  fail  in  all  practical  mat- 
ter*, and  Sydney  Smith  to  be  a  great  naturalist  —  "  never 
so  happy  as  when  arranging  his  birds  and  fishes."  "  Sir," 
said  the  divine,  with  a  stare  of  comical  stupidity,  "  I  don't 
know  a  fish  from  a  bird  ; "  and  the  chancellor  of  the  ex- 
chequer was  conscious  that  "  all  the  fiddle-faddle  of  the 
cabinet "  was  committed  to  him  on  account  of  his  love  of 
what  he  called  practical  business.     Crabb  Robinson,  on 


INCONGRUITY.  1 89 

one  of  his  visits  to  the  British  Gallery,  where  a  collection 
of  English  portraits  was  exhibited,  was  displeased  to  see 
the  name  of  the  hated  Jeffreys  put  to  a  "  dignified  and 
sweet  countenance,  that  might  have  conferred  new  grace 
on  some  delightful  character."  Consistently  enough  with 
the  delineation  of  the  portrait,  Evelyn  recorded  in  his 
Memoirs  that  he  "  saw  the  Chief  Justice  Jeffreys  in  a  large 
company  the  night  before,  and  that  he  thought  he  laughed, 
drank,  and  danced  too  much  for  a  man  who  had  that  day 
condemned  Algernon  Sidney  to  the  block."  An  emi- 
nent gentleman  who  inspected  the  portraits  of  Luther  and 
Melancthon,  as  they  appear  on  their  monuments  in  Wit- 
tenberg, describes  the  countenance  of  the  latter  as  "  acute 
and  sarcastic."  "  Had  subtlety  and  craft  been  his  qual- 
ities, I  should  have  thought  the  portrait  expressed  them." 
It  is  related  of  one  of  the  philanthropists  of  France,  who 
at  one  time  held  no  insignificant  place  in  the  government, 
that  when  a  distracted  wife,  who  had  pleaded  to  him  in 
vain  for  her  husband's  life,  in  retiring  from  his  presence, 
chanced  to  tread  on  his  favorite  spaniel's  tail,  he  ex- 
claimed, "  Good  heavens,  madame,  have  you,  then,  no 
humanity  ?  "  In  the  palace  Doria,  said  Willis,  there  is  a 
portrait  of  "  a  celebrated  widow  "  (so  called  in  the  cata- 
logue) by  Vandyck, — a  "  had-been  beautiful  woman,  in 
a  staid  cap,  with  hands  wonderfully  painted."  The  cus- 
todian told  the  visitor  that  it  was  "  a  portrait  of  the  wife 
of  Vandyck,  painted  as  an  old  woman  to  mortify  her  ex- 
cessive vanity,  when  she  was  but  twenty-three.  He  kept 
the  picture  until  she  was  older,  and,  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  it  had  become  a  flattering  likeness,  and  was  care- 
fully treasured  by  the  widow."  Lavater,  in  his  Physiog- 
nomy, says  that  Lord  Anson,  from  his  countenance,  must 
have  been  a  very  wise  man.  Horace  Walpole,  who  knew 
Lord  Anson  well,  said  he  was  the  most  stupid  man  he 
ever  knew.  Until  a  few  years  ago,  it  is  stated,  a  portrait 
at  Holland    House  was   prescriptively  reverenced    as    a 


190  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

speaking  likeness  of  Addison,  and  a  bust  was  designed 
after  it  by  a  distinguished  sculptor.  It  turns  out  to  be 
the  copy  of  a  portrait  of  a  quite  different  person  from  the 
"great  Mr.  Addison." 

Many  a  famous  name,  it  has  been  truly  said,  has  been 
indebted  for  its  brightest   lustre   to    things   which   were 
flung  oiT  as  a  pastime,  or  composed  as  an  irksome  duly, 
whilst   the   performances  upon  which   the    author   most 
relied  or  prided  himself  have  fallen    still-born   or   been 
neglected   by  posterity.     Thus  Petrarch,  who  trusted  to 
his  Latin  poems  for  immortality,  mainly  owes  it  to  the 
Sonnets,  which  he   regarded   as   ephemeral    displays  of 
feeling  or  fancy  of  the  hour.     Thus  Chesterfield,  the  or- 
ator, the  statesman,  the  Maecenas  and  Petronius  of  his 
age,  and  (above  all)  the  first  viceroy  who  ventured  on 
justice  to  Ireland,  is   floated  down  to  our  times  by  his 
familiar  Letters  to  his  Son.     Thus  Johnson,  the  Colossus 
of  Literature,  were  he  to  look  up  or  down   (to  adopt  the 
more  polite  hypothesis),  would  hardly  believe  his  eyes  or 
ears,  on  finding  that  Bozzy,  the  snubbed  and  suppressed, 
yet  ever  elastic  and  rebounding  Bozzy,  is  the  prop,  the 
bulwark,    the    key-stone  of   his   fame ;   "  the   salt   which 
keeps  it  sweet,  the  vitality  which  preser\'es  it  from  putre- 
faction."    We  have  it  upon  the  authority  of  old  Thomas 
Fuller,  that  "  when  a  French  printer  complained  that  he 
was  utterly  undone  by  printing  a  solid,  serious  book  of 
Rabelais  concerning  physic,  Rabelais,  to  make  him  rec- 
ompense, made  that  his  jesting,   scurrilous  work,  which 
repaired  the  printer's  loss  with  advantage."     "  It  was  im- 
possible to  tell  beforehand,"  said  Northcote  to   Hazlitt, 
"  what  would  hit  the  public.     You  might  as  well  pretend 
to  say  what  ticket  would  turn  up  a  prize  in  the  lottery.    It 
was  not  chance  neither,  but  some  unforeseen  coincidence 
between  the  subject   and  the  prevailing  taste,  that  you 
could  not  possibly  be  a  judge  of.    I  had  once  painted  two 
pictures  —  one  of  a  Fortune-teller  (a  boy  with  a  monkey) 


INCONGRUITY.  19I 

and  another  called  The  Visit  to  the  Grandmother ;  and 
Raphael  Smith  came  to  me  and  wanted  to  engrave  them, 
being  willing  to  give  a  handsome  sum  for  the  first,  but 
only  to  do  the  last  as  an  experiment.  He  sold  ten  times 
as  many  of  the  last  as  of  the  first,  and  told  me  that  there 
were  not  less  than  five  different  impressions  done  of  it  in 
Paris ;  and  once,  when  I  went  to  his  house,  to  get  one  to 
complete  a  set  of  engravings  after  my  designs,  they  asked 
me  six  guineas  for  a  proof  impression  1  This  was  too 
much,  but  I  was  delighted  that  I  could  not  afford  to  pay 
for  my  own  work,  from  the  value  that  was  set  upon  it." 
Cervantes,  who  was  fifty-eight  when  he  published  the  first 
part  of  Don  Quixote,  had,  like  Fielding,  "  written  a  con- 
siderable number  of  indifferent  dramas  which  gave  no 
indication  of  the  immortal  work  which  afterward  aston- 
ished and  delighted  the  world.  He  was  the  author  of 
several  tales,  for  which  even  his  subsequent  fame  can 
procure  very  few  readers,  and  would  certainly  have  been 
forgotten  if  the  lustre  of  his  masterpiece  had  not  shed 
its  light  upon  everything  which  belonged  to  him.  It  was 
not  till  he  was  verging  upon  three-score  that  he  hit  upon 
the  happy  plan  which  was  to  exhibit  his  genius,  and 
which  nothing  previously  sufficed  to  display.  Fielding 
A^as  equally  ignorant  of  his  province.  Writing  for  a  sub- 
sistence, trying  everything  by  turns,  having  the  strongest 
interest  in  discovering  how  he  could  lay  out  his  powers 
to  the  best  advantage,  he  mistook  his  road,  and  only 
Sound  it  by  chance.  If  Pamela  had  never  existed,  it 
is  more  than  possible  that  English  literature  might 
have  wanted  Joseph  Andrews,  Tom  Jones,  and  Amelia." 
Scott's  conversation  about  his  own  productions,  as  re- 
corded by  Moore  in  his  Diary,  is  curious,  showing  that 
he  rather  stumbled  upon  his  talent  than  cultivated  it 
originally.  "  Had  begun  Waverley  long  before,  and  then 
thrown  it  by,  until  having  occasion  for  some  money  (to 
help  his  brother,  I  think),  he  bethought  himself  of  it,  but 


192  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

could  not  find  the  MSS."     When  he  did,   "made  3,000 
pounds  by  Waver  ley." 

It  is  set  down  as  a  striking  commentary  upon  the  taste 
of  his  contemporaries  that  Hogarth's  six  pictures  of  Mar- 
riage h.  la  Mode  were  sold  for  nineteen  pounds  and  six 
shillings,  though  fifty  years  afterward  they  brought  one 
thousand  three  hundred  and  eighty  pounds.  The  manu- 
script of  Robinson  Crusoe  ran  through  the  whole  trade, 
noi  would  any  one  print  it,  though  the  writer,  De  Foe, 
was  in  good  repute  as  an  author.  The  bookseller  who 
risked  the  publication  was  a  speculator,  not  remarkable 
for  discernment.  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield  lay  unpub- 
lished for  two  years  after  the  publisher,  Newberry,  was 
importuned  by  Dr.  Johnson  to  pay  sixty  pounds  for  it  to 
save  the  author  from  distress.  Paradise  Lost  made  a 
narrow  escape.  Sterne  found  it  hard  to  find  a  publisher 
for  Tristram  Shandy,  The  sermon  in  it,  he  says  in  the 
preface  to  his  Sermons,  was  printed  by  itself  some  years 
before,  but  could  find  neither  purchasers  nor  readers. 
When  it  was  inserted  in  his  eccentric  work,  with  the  ad- 
vantage of  Trim's  fine  reading,  it  met  with  a  most  favor- 
able reception,  and  occasioned  the  others  to  be  collected. 
Cowper's  first  volume  of  poems  was  published  by  John- 
son, and  fell  dead  from  the  press.  Author  and  publisher 
were  to  incur  equal  loss.  Cowper  begged  Johnson  to 
forgive  him  his  debt,  and  this  was  done.  In  return,  Cow- 
per sent  Johnson  his  Task,  saying :  "  You  behaved  gener- 
ously to  me  on  a  former  occasion  ;  if  you  think  it  safe  to 
publish  this  new  work,  I  make  you  a  present  of  it." 
Johnson  published  it.  It  became  popular.  The  former 
volume  was  then  sold  with  it.  The  profits  to  the  pub- 
lisher, it  is  said,  were  at  least  fifty  thousand  dollars. 
Cooper  says  that  the  first  volume  of  The  Spy  was  act- 
ually printed  several  months  before  he  felt  a  sufficient 
inducement  to  write  a  line  of  the  second.  As  the  second 
volume,  he  says,  was  slowly  printing,  from  manuscript 


INCONGRUITY.  1 93 

that  was  barely  dry  when  it  went  into  the  compositor's 
hands,  the  publisher  intimated  that  the  work  might  grow 
to  a  length  that  would   consume   the   profits.      To  set 
his  mind  at  rest,  the  last  chapter  was  actually  written, 
printed,   and  paged,  several   weeks  before  the  chapters 
which  preceded  it  were  even  thought  of.     The  Culprit 
Fay,  we  are  told  by  the  biographer  of  Drake,  was  com- 
posed hastily  among  the  Highlands  of  the  Hudson,  in  the 
summer  of    1819.     The  author  was  walking  with  some 
tiiends  on  a  warm  moonlight  evening,  when  one  of  the 
party  remarked  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  write  a  fairy 
poem,  purely  imaginative,  without  the  aid  of  human  char- 
acters.    When  the  paity  was  reassembled  two  or  three 
days  afterward.  The  Culprit  Fay  was  read  to  them,  nearly 
as  it  is  now  printed.  Drake  placed  a  very  modest  estimate 
on  his  own  productions,  and  it  is  believed  that  but  a  small 
portion   of    them    have   been   preserved.     When  on   his 
death-bed,  a  friend  inquired  of  him  what  disposition  he 
would  have  made  of  his  poems.     "  Oh,  burn  them,"  he 
replied;  "they  are  quite  valueless."     Written  copies  of  a 
number  of  them  were,  however,  in  circulation,  and  some 
had  been  incorrectly  printed  in  the  periodicals  ;  and  fox 
this  reason  was  published  the  single  collection  of  them 
which  has  appeared.      A  mere  rumor  that  Erasmus'  Col- 
loquies had  got  into  the  Index  Expurgatorius,  sold    an 
impression  of  four-and-twenty  thousand  copies,  and  made 
the  fortune  of  the  publisher.     Fe'nelon's  Adventures  of 
Telemachus,  which  had  hitherto  remained  in  manuscri])t, 
was  given  to  the  world  by  the  dishonesty  of  a  servant 
who  had  been  employed  to  have  the  work  copied,  but 
who  sold  it  to  a  bookseller  without  disclosing  the   au- 
thor's  name.     The  king,   having  been  told  that  it  was 
from  the  pen  of  the  Archbishop  of  Cambrai,  and  prob- 
ably sharing  an  unfounded  suspicion  then  current,  that 
the  book  was  a  satire  on  the  court,  took  measures  to  sup- 
press it ;  but  a  few  copies  escaped  seizure,  and  an  imper 
13        "" 


194  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

feet  edition  was  printed  in  Holland  in  1699,  Others 
followed  rapidly,  and  for  a  long  time  the  press  was  un- 
able to  keep  up  with  the  public  demand.  Sir  Matthew 
Hale  wrote  four  volumes  in  folio,  "  three  of  which  I  have 
read,"  says  Baxter,  "  against  atheism,  Sadduceeism,  and 
infidelity,  to  prove  first  the  Deity,  and  then  the  immortal- 
ity of  man's  soul,  and  then  the  truth  of  Christianity  and 
the  Holy  Scripture,  answering  the  infidel's  objections 
against  Scripture.  It  is  strong  and  masculine,  only  too 
tedious  for  impatient  readers.  He  said  he  wrote  it  only 
at  vacant  hours  in  his  circuits,  to  regulate  his  medita- 
tions, finding,  that  while  he  wrote  down  what  he  thought 
on,  his  thoughts  were  the  easier  kept  close  to  work,  and 
kept  in  a  method.  But  I  could  not  persuade  him  to 
publish  them." 

One  is  tempted  to  speculate  upon  the  books  that  never 
were  published.  As  some  of  the  best  books  have  been 
written  in  prison  or  captivity,  so  some  of  like  quality  may 
have  perished  with  their  unfortunate  authors.  If  so  many 
great  authors,  like  Dryden  and  Cervantes,  and  Le  Sage 
and  Spenser,  almost  starved,  barely  procuring  a  pittance 
for  their  published  works,  how  many  good  works  may 
not,  in  despair,  have  been  destroyed  by  their  authors.  If 
so  many  great  works  were  accidentally  discovered  in 
manuscript,  how  many  as  great  may  have  perished  in  that 
form.  "  The  Romans  wrote  their  books  either  on  parch- 
ment or  on  paper  made  of  the  Egyptian  papyrus.  The 
latter,  being  the  cheapest,  was,  of  course,  the  most  com- 
monly used.  But  after  the  communication  between  Eu- 
rope and  Egypt  was  broken  off,  on  account  of  the  latter 
having  been  seized  upon  by  the  Saracens,  the  papyiiis 
was  no  longer  in  use  in  Italy  or  in  other  European  coun- 
tries. They  were  obliged,  on  that  account,  to  write  all 
their  books  upon  parchment,  and  as  its  price  was  high, 
books  became  extremely  rare,  and  of  great  value.  We 
may  judge  of  the  scarcity  of  materials  for  writing  them 


INCONGRUITY.  195 

from  one  circumstance.  There  still  remain  several  manu- 
scripts of  the  eighth,  ninth,  and  following  centuries,  writ- 
ten on  parchment,  from  which  some  former  writing  had 
been  erased,  in  order  to  substitute  a  new  composition  in 
its  place.  In  this  manner,  it  is  probable,  several  books 
of  the  ancients  perished.  A  book  of  Livy,  or  of  Tacitus, 
might  be  erased,  to  make  room  for  the  legendary  tale  of 
a  saint,  or  the  superstitious  prayers  of  a  missal."  Truly, 
a  resurrection  of  the  unpublished,  to  say  the  least,  would 
expose  an  interesting  mass  of  intellectual  novelties.  The 
book-tasters,  wise  as  they  think  themselves,  are  very  far 
from  being  unerring  in  their  estimates  of  brain  values,  and 
better  things  than  they  have  approved  may  have  gone  into 
the  basket.  The  weather  or  bad  chirography  may  have 
damned  many  a  production  of  genius.  The  rejection  of 
an  article  for  a  quarterly  may  have  snuffed  out  the  most 
promising  talents.  It  is  possible  that  some  charitable  re- 
former may  have  discovered  a  way  to  fuse  sects  and  har- 
monize Christians,  but  was  prevented  from  showing  it  to 
the  world  by  the  stupidity  of  printers  ! 

The  most  wonderful  and  sublime  things  in  nature  and 
art  are  rarely  appreciated  at  first  view.  Every  visitor  is 
disappointed  at  the  first  sight  of  Niagara.  Mountains 
are  not  appreciated  till  we  have  dwelt  long  among  them. 
Goethe  was  at  first  disturbed  and  confused  by  the  impres- 
sion which  Switzerland  produced  on  him.  Only  after  re- 
peated visits,  he  said,  only  in  later  years,  when  he  visited 
those  mountains  as  a  mineralogist  merely,  could  he  con- 
verse with  them  at  his  ease.  The  sea  is  but  a  dead, 
monotonous  waste,  till  we  come  to  feel  its  immensity  and 
power.  London  is  but  a  great  town  till  we  have  wandered 
in  it,  lost  ourselves  in  it,  studied  it,  in  fine,  till  we  have 
found  it  too  great  to  be  comprehended,  when  its  marvel- 
ous proportions  are  expanded  into  a  nation,  and  it  is  ac- 
cepted as  one  of  the  great  powers  of  the  world.  "  The 
longer  one  stays  in  London,"  said  a  temporary  resident, 


196  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

*'  the  more  it  seems  a  mockery  to  say  anything  about  it." 
"I  remember,"  says  an  American  traveler,  "having  read 
a  glorious  description  of  Milan  cathedral,  and  a  few  days 
later  I  saw  the  temple  myself.  To  my  first  view  it  was 
only  a  large  marble  church,  fronting  on  an  unpleasant 
square,  and  adorned  with  indistinct  spires.  I  was  shocked 
with  disappointment.  But  when  I  spent  a  fortnight  at 
Milan,  and  studied  the  cathedral  in  every  light  and  through 
every  part,  I  then  saw  that  the  description  was  far  inade- 
quate to  the  actuality."  "  When  the  visitor,"  says  Hillard, 
"has  passed  into  the  interior  of  St.  Peter's,  and  so  far  re- 
covered from  the  first  rush  of  tumultuous  sensations  which 
crowd  upon  him  as  to  be  able  to  look  about  him,  he  will  be 
struck  with,  and,  if  not  forewarned,  disappointed  at,  the 
apparent  want  of  magnitude."  But  he  will  find  that  the 
windows  of  the  church  are  never  opened,  it  is  so  immense 
as  well  as  so  complete  ;  that  it  has  its  own  atmosphere, 
and  needs  no  supply  from  the  world  without ;  that  the 
most  zealous  professor  of  ventilation  would  admit  that 
there  was  no  work  for  him  to  do  here.  "  When  we  dream 
of  the  climate  of  heaven,  we  make  it  warmth  without 
heat,  and  coolness  without  cold,  like  that  of  St.  Peter's." 
It  has  been  mentioned  as  a  remarkable  quality  in  Cole- 
ridge's mind  that  edifices  excited  little  interest  in  him. 
"  On  his  return  from  Italy,  and  after  having  resided  for 
some  time  in  Rome,  I  remember,"  says  Cottle,  "  his  de- 
scribing to  me  the  state  of  society ;  the  characters  of  the 
popes  and  the  cardinals ;  the  gorgeous  ceremonies,  with 
the  superstitions  of  the  people  ;  but  not  one  word  did  he 
utter  concerning  St.  Peter's,  the  Vatican,  or  the  numerous 
antiquities  of  the  place.  I  remember  to  have  been  with 
Mr.  Coleridge  at  York  on  our  journey  into  Durham,  to 
see  Mr.  Wordsworth.  After  breakfast  at  the  inn,  perceiv- 
ing Mr,  C.  engaged,  I  went  out  alone,  to  see  the  York 
minster,  being  in  the  way  detained  in  a  bookseller's  shop. 
In  the   meantime,  Mr.  C,  having  missed  me,  set  oS  in 


INCONGRUITY.  1 97 

search  of  me.  Supposing  it  probable  that  I  was  gone  to 
the  minster,  he  went  up  to  the  door  of  that  magnificent 
structure,  and  inquired  of  the  porter,  whether  such  an 
individual  as  myself  had  gone  in  there.  Being  answered 
in  the  negative,  he  had  no  further  curiosity,  not  even 
looking  into  the  interior,  but  turned  away  to  pursue  his 
search !  so  that  Mr.  C.  left  York  without  beholding,  or 
wishing  to  behold,  the  chief  attraction  of  the  city,  or  being 
at  all  conscious  that  he  had  committed,  by  his  neglect, 
high  treason  against  all  architectural  beauty  !  "  North- 
cote  mentioned  a  conceited  painter  of  the  name  of  Edwards, 
who  went  with  Romney  to  Rome,  and  when  they  got  into 
the  Sistine  chapel,  turning  round  to  him,  said,  "  Egad, 
George  !  we  're  bit  1 "  "Raphael's  Transfiguration,"  says 
Willis,  "  is  agreed  to  be  the  finest  picture  in  the  world. 
I  had  made  up  my  mind  to  the  same  opinion  from  the 
engravings  of  it,  but  was  painfully  disappointed  in  the  pict- 
ure. I  looked  at  it  from  every  corner  of  the  rpom,  and 
asked  the  custodian  three  times  if  he  was  sure  this  was 
the  original.  The  color  offended  my  eye,  blind  as  Raph- 
ael's name  should  make  it,  and  I  left  the  room  with  a  sigh, 
and  an  unsettled  faith  in  my  own  taste,  that  made  me 
seriously  unhappy.  My  complacency  was  restored  a  few 
hours  after  on  hearing  that  the  wonder  was  entirely  in  the 
drawing  —  the  colors  having  quite  changed  with  time." 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  says  he  was  informed  by  the  keeper 
of  the  Vatican  that  many  of  those  whom  he  had  conducted 
through  the  various  apartments  of  that  edifice,  when  about 
to  be  dismissed,  had  asked  for  the  works  of  Raphael,  and 
would  not  believe  that  they  had  already  passed  through 
the  rooms  where  they  are  preserved.  "  I  remember  very 
well,"  he  says,  "  my  own  disappointment  when  I  first  vis- 
ited the  Vatican.  All  the  indigested  notions  of  painting 
which  I  had  brought  with  me  from  England  were  to  be 
totally  done  away  with  and  eradicated  from  my  mind.  It 
was  necessary,  as  it  is  expressed  on  a  very  solemn  occa- 


tgS  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

sion,  that  I  should  become  as  a  little  child.  Nor  does 
painting  in  this  respect  differ  from  other  arts.  A  just  and 
poetical  taste,  and  the  acquisition  of  a  nice,  discriminative 
musical  ear,  are  equally  the  work  of  time.  Even  the  eye, 
however  perfect  in  itself,  is  often  unable  to  distinguish 
between  the  brilliancy  of  two  diamonds,  though  the  ex- 
perienced jeweler  will  be  amazed  at  its  blindness."  "The 
musician  by  profession,"  said  Goethe,  "hears,  in  an  or- 
chestral performance,  every  instrument,  and  every  single 
tone,  whilst  one  unacquainted  with  the  art  is  wrapped  up 
in  the  massive  effect  of  the  whole.  A  man  merely  bent 
upon  enjoyment  sees  in  a  green  or  flowery  meadow  only 
a  pleasant  plain,  whilst  the  eye  of  a  botanist  discovers  an 
endless  detail  of  the  most  varied  plants  and  grasses." 
Gainsborough  says  that  an  artist  knows  an  original  from 
a  copy,  by  obser\'ing  the  touch  of  the  pencil ;  for  there 
will  be  the  same  individuality  in  the  strokes  of  the  brush 
as  in  the.  strokes  of  a  pen.  "  Those  who  can  at  once  dis- 
tinguish between  different  sorts  of  handwriting  are  yet 
often  astonished  at  the  possession  of  the  faculty  when  it 
is  exercised  upon  pictures.  No  engraver,  in  like  manner, 
can  counterfeit  the  stj^le  of  another.  His  brethren  of 
the  craft  would  not  only  immediately  detect  the  forger}^, 
but  would  recognize  the  distinctive  strokes  of  the  forger," 
Hogarth  and  Reynolds,  it  is  said,  could  not  do  each 
other  justice.  Hogarth  ranked  Reynolds  very  low  as  a 
painter.  Johnson  said  "Tristram  Shandy  did  not  last;" 
^and  Goldsmith  noticed  the  faults  of  Sterne  only.  They 
may  each  have  looked  with  some  feeling  of  envy  to  the  fat 
greater  immediate  success  than  either  of  themselves  had 
enjoyed ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  Hogarth,  Johnson, 
and  Goldsmith  were  so  dishonest  as  to  deny  the  ex- 
istence of  the  excellences  they  saw.  Unfortunately,  per- 
sons engaged  in  the  same  departments  of  literature  or 
art  generally  dislike  one  another.  It  is  one  of  the  draw- 
backs of  genius.     Voltaire   and   Rousseau    hated   each 


INCONGRUITY.  igq 

Other;  Fielding  despised  Richardson;  Petrarch,  Dante; 
Michel  Angelo  sneered  at  Raphael ;  but  fortunately 
their  reputations  did  not  depend  upon  one  another. 
Envy  and  hatred  aside,  it  was  impossible  for  them  to 
judge  one  another  justly ;  they  were  too  near,  A  painter 
once  confessed  to  Dr.  Johnson  that  no  professor  of  the 
art  ever  loved  a  person  who  pursued  the  same  craft.  The 
whole  class  of  underlings  who  fed  at  the  table  of  Smol- 
lett, and  existed  by  his  patronage,  traduced  his  character 
and  abused  his  works ;  and,  as  they  were  no  less  treach- 
erous to  one  another  than  to  their  benefactor,  each  was 
eager  to  betray  the  rest  to  him.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
last  century,  says  Southey,  books  which  are  now  justly 
regarded  as  among  the  treasures  of  English  literature, 
which  are  the  delight  of  the  old  and  the  young,  the 
learned  and  the  unlearned,  the  high  and  the  low,  were 
then  spoken  of  with  contempt ;  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  as 
fit  only  for  the  ignorant  and  the  vulgar,  Robinson  Crusoe 
for  children  ;  if  any  one  but  an  angler  condescended  to 
look  into  Izaak  Walton,  it  must  be  for  the  sake  of  find- 
ing something  to  laugh  at.  It  will  never  be  forgotten,  in 
the  history  of  English  poetry,  that,  with  a  generous  and 
just  though  impatient  sense  of  indignation,  Collins,  as 
soon  as  his  means  enabled  him,  repaid  the  publisher  of 
his  poems  the  price  which  he  had  received  for  their  copy- 
right, indemnified  him  for  the  loss  in  the  adventure,  and 
committed  the  remainder,  which  was  by  far  the  greater 
part  of  the  impression,  to  the  flames.  But  it  should  also 
be  remembered  that  in  the  course  of  one  generation 
these  poems,  without  any  adventitious  aids  to  bring  them 
into  notice,  were  acknowledged  to  be  the  best  of  their 
kind  in  the  language.  The  very  existence  of  the  works 
of  William  Dunbar  has  been  mentioned  as  a  signal  proof 
of  the  immortality  of  real  merit ;  for  we  know  not  at 
what  precise  time  he  was  born,  nor  when  he  died,  and 
his  very  name  is  not,  with  one  solitary  exception,  to  be 


200  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

met  with  in  the  whole  compass  of  English  literature  for 
two  hundred  years ;  nor  was  it  till  after  the  lapse  of 
three  centuries  that  his  poems  were  collected  and  pub- 
lished —  to  secure  him  the  reputation,  among  his  own 
countrymen,  of  being  one  of  the  greatest  of  Scotland's 
poets.  This  neglect  or  inability  to  acknowledge  con- 
temporary genius  was  humorously  hinted  at  by  Coleridge 
in  one  of  his  lectures.  The  lecture  being  extempora- 
neous, he  now  and  then  took  up  scraps  of  paper  on 
which  he  had  noted  the  leading  points  of  his  subject, 
and  made  use  of  books  that  were  about  him  for  quota- 
tion. On  turning  to  one  of  these  (a  work  of  his  own), 
he  said,  "  As  this  is  a  secret  which  I  confided  to  the  pub- 
lic a  year  or  two  ago,  and  which,  to  do  the  public  justice, 
has  been  very  faithfully  kept,  I  may  be  permitted  to  read 
you  a  passage  from  it." 

Tom  Taylor's  anecdote  of  Bott,  the  barrister,  illus- 
trates the  uncertainty  of  literary  recognition.  Bott  occu- 
pied the  rooms  opposite  to  Goldsmith's  in  Brick  Court ; 
he  lent  the  needy  author  money,  drove  him  in  his  gig  to 
the  Shoemakers'  Paradise,  eight  miles  down  the  Edge- 
ware  Road,  and  occasionally  periled  both  their  necks  in  a 
ditch.  Reynolds  painted  this  good-natured  barrister,  who 
runs  a  better  chance  of  reaching  posterity  in  that  gig  of 
his  alongside  of  Goldsmith,  than  by  virtue  of  the  Treatise 
on  the  Poor  Laws  which  Goldsmith  is  said  to  have  writ- 
ten up  for  him.  And  as  if  the  uncertainty  of  literary  fame 
were  not  great  enough,  authors  themselves  sometimes 
strive  to  increase  it  by  most  extraordinary  means.  You 
remember  Southey's  attempt  to  hoax  Theodore  Hook  re- 
garding the  authorship  of  The  Doctor.  At  Hook's  death 
a  packet  of  letters  was  found  addressed  to  him,  as  the 
author  of  The  Doctor,  and  acknowledging  presentation 
copies  —  one  from  Southey  among  the  rest.  They  had 
been  forwarded  from  the  publisher,  and  were  intended,  it 
is  presumed,  if  they  were  intended  for  anything,  as  a  trap 


INCONGRUITY.  201 

for  Hook's  vanity.  Sydney  Smith  positively  denied  all 
connection  with  the  Plymley  Letters  in  one  edition,  and 
published  them  in  a  collection  of  his  acknowledged  works 
some  months  after.  Sir  Walter  Scott,  being  taxed  at  a 
dinner-table  as  the  author  of  Old  Mortality,  not  only 
denied  being  the  author,  but  said  to  Murray,  the  pub- 
lisher, who  was  present,  "In  order  to  convince  you  that 
]  am  not  the  author,  I  will  review  the  book  for  you  in  the 
Quarterly,"  —  which  he  actually  did,  and  Murray  re- 
tained the  manuscript  after  Sir  Walter's  death. 

The  novelty  of  a  real  work  of  genius  is  sufficient  to  de- 
cry it  with  the  incredulous  public.  All  new  things,  much 
out  of  the  ordinary  way,  must  make  a  struggle  for  ex- 
istence. It  is  but  the  way  of  the  world.  The  Jesuits  of 
Peru  introduced  into  Protestant  England  the  Peruvian 
bark  ;  but  being  a  remedy  used  by  Jesuits,  the  Protestant 
English  at  once  rejected  the  drug  as  the  invention  of  the 
devil.  Paracelsus  introduced  antimony  as  a  valuable 
medicine  ;  he  was  prosecuted  for  the  innovation,  and  the 
French  Parliament  passed  an  act  making  it  a  penal  of- 
fense to  prescribe  it.  Dr.  Groenvelt  first  employed  can- 
tharides  internally,  and  no  sooner  did  his  cures  begin  to 
make  a  noise,  than  he  was  at  once  committed  to  New- 
gate by  warrant  of  the  President  of  the  College  of  Phy- 
sicians. Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu  first  introduced 
into  England  the  practice  of  inoculation  for  the  small- 
pox, by  which  malady  she  had  lost  an  only  brother  and 
her  own  fine  eye-lashes.  She  applied  the  process,  after 
earnest  examination,  to  her  only  son,  five  years  old  ;  and 
on  her  return  to  England,  the  experiment  was  tried,  at 
her  suggestion,  on  five  persons  under  sentence  of  death. 
The  success  of  the  trial  did  not  prevent  the  most  violent 
clamors  against  the  innovation.  The  faculty  predicted 
unknown  disastrous  consequences,  the  clergy  regarded  it 
as  an  interference  with  Divine  Providence,  and  the  com- 
mon people  were  taught  to  look  upon  her  as  an  unnatural 


202  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

mother,  who  had  imperiled  the  safety  of  her  own  child. 
Although  she  soon  gained  influential  supporters,  the  ob- 
loquy which  she  endured  was  such  as  to  make  her  some- 
times repent  her  philanthropy.  Jenner,  who  introduced 
the  still  greater  discovery  of  vaccination,  was  treated 
with  ridicule  and  contempt,  and  was  persecuted,  prose- 
cuted, and  oppressed  by  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians. 
After  nearly  twenty  years  of  patient  and  sagacious  study 
and  experiment,  he  went  to  London  to  communicate  the 
process  to  the  profession,  and  to  endeavor  to  procure  its 
general  adoption.  His  reception  was  disheartening  in 
the  extreme.  Not  only  did  the  doctors  refuse  to  make 
trial  of  the  process,  but  the  discoverer  was  accused  of  an 
attempt  to  "bestialize"  his  species  by  introducing  into  the 
system  diseased  matter  from  a  cow's  udder  ;  vaccination 
was  denounced  from  the  pulpit  as  "  diabolical,"  and  the 
most  monstrous  statements  respecting  its  effects  upon  the 
human  system  were  disseminated  and  believed.  Early  in 
the  fourteenth  century  a  law  was  passed  making  it  a  cap- 
tal  offense  to  burn  coal  within  the  precincts  of  London. 
In  the  reign  of  Edward  I.  a  man  was  actually  executed 
for  the  commission  of  the  crime.  The  prejudice  contin- 
ued to  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Not  more  than 
three  quarters  of  a  century  ago,  an  ambassador  at  Paris 
issued  cards  for  a  large  party,  and  found,  to  his  dismay, 
that  only  gentlemen  attended,  the  ladies  having  absented 
themselves  on  '^hearing  that  his  lordship  warmed  his  house 
by  means  of  English  coal.  The  use  of  forks  was  at  first 
much  ridiculed  in  England ;  in  one  of  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher's  plays,  "  your  fork -carving  traveler  "  is  spoken 
of  very  contemptuously ;  and  Ben  Jonson  has  also  ridi- 
:uled  them  in  one  of  his  comedies.  "  On  the  invention 
of  scissors,"  says  Voltaire,  "what  was  not  said  of  those 
who  pared  their  nails  and  cut  off  some  ot  their  hair  that 
was  hanging  down  over  their  noses?  They  were  un- 
doubtedly considered  as  prodigals   a»d  coxcombs,  who 


INCONGRUITY.  2O3 

bought  at  an  extravagant  price  an  instrument  just  calcu- 
lated to  spoil  the  work  of  the  Creator.  What  an  enor- 
mous sin  to  pare  the  horn  which  God  himself  made  to 
grow  at  our  fingers'  ends  !  It  was  absolutely  an  insult  to 
the  Divine  Being  himself.  When  shirts  and  stockings 
were  invented,  it  was  far  worse.  It  is  well  known  with 
what  warmth  and  indignation  the  old  counselors,  who  had 
never  worn  socks,  exclaimed  against  the  youthful  magis- 
trates who  encouraged  so  dreadful  and  fatal  a  luxury." 
The  fashion  of  plaiting  shirts  began  in  Rabelais'  time  ; 
and  it  was  said  that  the  gathers  were  fit  for  nothing  but  to 
harbor  lice  and  fleas.  Robespierre's  first  important  cause 
was  a  defense  of  the  introduction  of  Franklin's  light- 
ning-rods against  the  charge  of  impiety.  When  thresh- 
ing-machines were  first  introduced  into  England,  there 
was  such  an  opposition  to  them,  and  arson  became  so 
common  in  consequence,  that  such  farmers  as  had  them 
were  obliged  to  surrender  them,  or  expose  them  broken 
on  the  high-road.  The  fashion  of  wearing  boots  with 
pointed  toes  was  supposed  to  have  been  peculiarly  offen- 
sive to  the  Almighty,  and  was  believed  by  many  to  have 
been  the  cause  of  the  black  death,  which  carried  off,  it  is 
estimated,  in  six  years,  twenty-five  millions,  or  a  fourth 
part  of  the  population  of  Europe.  Another  opinion,  we 
are  informed,  gained  ground,  that  the  Jews  were  respon- 
sible for  the  ravages  of  the  plague.  It  was  claimed  that 
the  Rabbi  of  Toledo  had  sent  out  a  venomous  mixture 
concocted  of  consecrated  wafers  and  the  blood  of  Chris- 
tian hearts  to  the  various  congregations,  with  orders  to 
poison  the  wells.  The  Pope  himself  undertook  to  plead 
for  their  innocency,  but  even  papal  bulls  were  powerless 
to  stay  the  popular  madness.  In  Dekkendorf  a  church 
was  built  in  honor  of  the  massacre  of  the  Jews  of  that 
-own,  and  the  spot  thus  consecrated  has  remained  a  fa- 
vorite resort  of  pilgrims  down  to  the  present  time. 

Amongst  the  curiosities  of  literature  is    "  a  narrative 


204  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

extracted  from  Luther's  writings,  of  the  dialogue  related 
by  Luther  himself  to  have  been  carried  on  between  him 
and  the  devil,  who,  Luther  declares,  was  the  first  who 
pointed  out  to  him  the  absurdity  and  evil  of  private  mass. 
Of  course  it  is  strongly  pressed  upon  the  pious  reader 
that  even  Luther  himself  confesses  that  the  Father  of 
Lies  was  the  author  of  the  Reformation  ;  and  a  pretty 
good  story  is  made  out  for  the  Catholics."  John  Gait,  in 
his  Life  of  Wolsey,  says,  "  Those  pious  Presbyterians, 
who  inveigh  against  cards  as  the  devil's  books,  are  little 
aware  that  they  were  an  instrument  in  the  great  work  of 
the  Reformation.  The  vulgar  game  about  that  time  was 
the  devil  and  the  priest ;  and  the  skill  of  the  players  con- 
sisted in  preserving  the  priest  from  the  devil ;  but  the 
devil  in  the  end  always  got  hold  of  him." 

Mighty  means  indeed  trifles  have  sometimes  proved. 
The  foolish  ballad  of  Lilli  Burlero,  treating  the  Papists, 
and  chiefly  the  Irish,  in  a  very  ridiculous  manner,  slight 
and  insignificant  as  it  now  seems,  had  once  a  more  pow- 
erful effect  than  the  Philippics  of  either  Demosthenes  or 
Cicero  ;  it  contributed  not  a  little  toward  the  great  revo- 
lution in  1688  ;  the  whole  army  and  the  people  in  country 
and  city  caught  it  up,  and  "  sang  a  deluded  prince  out  of 
three  kingdoms."  Percy  has  preserved  the  ballad  in  his 
Reliques,  but  who  remembers  the  air  ?  My  Uncle  Toby, 
it  seems,  was  about  the  last  to  whistle  it. 

The  most  popular  song  ever  written  in  the  British  Isl- 
ands, that  of  Auld  Lang  Syne,  is  anonymous,  and  we 
know  no  more  of  the  author  of  the  music  than  we  do  of 
the  author  of  the  words.  Much  of  Burns'  great  fame 
rests  upon  this  song,  in  which  his  share  amounts  only  to 
a  few  emendations.  The  Last  Rose  of  Summer  is  said 
to  be  made  up  in  great  part  of  an  old  Sicilian  air,  orig- 
inating nobody  knows  when.  Old  Hundred,  they  say, 
was  constructed  out  of  fragments  as  old  as  music  itself 
—  strains  that  are  as  immortal  as  the  instinct  of  music. 


INCONGRUITY.  205 

Home,  Sweet  Home  was  written  in  a  garret  in  the  Palais 
Royal,  Paris,  when  poor  Payne  was  so  utterly  destitute 
and  friendless  that  he  knew  not  where  the  next  day's 
dinner  was  to  come  from.  It  appeared  originally  in  a 
diminutive  opera  called  Clari,  the  Maid  of  Milan.  The 
opera  is  seldom  seen  or  heard  of  now,  but  the  song  grows 
nearer  and  dearer  as  the  years  roll  away.  More  than 
once  the  unfortunate  author,  walking  the  lonely  streets  of 
London  or  Paris  amid  the  storm  and  darkness,  hungry, 
houseless,  and  penniless,  saw  the  cheerful  light  gleaming 
through  the  windows  of  happy  homes,  and  heard  the  mu- 
sic of  his  own  song  drifting  out  upon  the  gloomy  night  to 
mock  the  wanderer's  heart  with  visions  of  comfort  and 
of  joy,  whose  blessed  reality  was  forever  denied  to  him. 
Home,  Sweet  Home  was  written  by  a  homeless  man. 
Lamartine,  in  his  History  of  the  Girondists,  has  given  an 
account  of  the  origin  of  the  French  national  air,  the  Mar- 
seillaise. In  the  garrison  of  Strasburg  was  quartered  a 
young  artillery  officer,  named  Rouget  de  I'lsle.  He  had 
a  great  taste  for  music  and  poetry,  and  often  entertained 
his  comrades  during  their  long  and  tedious  hours  in  the 
garrison.  Sought  after  for  his  musical  and  poetical  tal- 
ent, he  was  a  frequent  and  familiar  guest  at  the  house  of 
one  Dietrich,  an  Alsacian  patriot,  mayor  of  Strasburg. 
The  winter  of  1792  was  a  period  of  great  scarcity  at 
Strasburg.  The  house  of  Dietrich  was  poor,  his  table 
was  frugal,  but  a  seat  was  always  open  for  Rouget  de 
risle.  One  day  there  was  nothing  but  bread  and  some 
slices  of  smoked  ham  on  the  table.  Dietrich,  regarding 
the  young  officer,  said  to  him  with  sad  serenity,  "  Abun- 
dance fails  at  our  boards ;  but  what  matters  that,  if  enthu- 
siasm fails  not  at  our  civic  fetes,  nor  courage  in  the  hearts 
of  our  soldiers.  I  have  still  a  last  bottle  of  wine  in  my 
cellar.  Bring  it,"  said  he  to  one  of  his  daughters,  "  and 
let  us  drink  France  and  Liberty !  Strasburg  should  have 
its  patriotic  solemnity.     De  ITsle  must  draw  from  these 


206  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

last  drops  one  of  those  hymns  which  raise  the  soul  of  the 
people."  The  wine  was  brought  and  drank,  after  which 
the  officer  departed.  The  night  was  cold.  De  ITsle  was 
thoughtful.  His  heart  was  moved,  his  head  heated.  He 
returned,  staggering,  to  his  solitary  room,  and  slowly 
sought  inspiration,  sometimes  in  the  fervor  of  his  citizen 
soul,  and  anon  on  the  keys  of  his  instrument,  compos- 
ing noM  the  air  before  the  words,  and  then  the  words 
before  the  air.  He  sang  all  and  wrote  nothing,  and  at 
last,  exhausted,  fell  asleep,  with  his  head  resting  on  his 
instrument,  and  woke  not  till  day-break.  The  music  ot 
the  night  returned  to  his  mind  like  the  impression  of  a 
dream.  He  wrote  it,  and  ran  to  Dietrich,  whom  he  found 
in  the  garden,  engaged  with  his  winter  lettuces.  The 
wife  and  daughters  of  the  old  man  were  not  up.  Die- 
trich awoke  them,  and  called  in  some  friends,  all  as  pas- 
sionate as  himself  for  music,  and  able  to  execute  the 
composition  of  De  ITsle.  At  the  first  stanza,  cheeks 
grew  pale ;  at  the  second,  tears  flowed  ;  and  at  last,  the 
delirium  of  enthusiasm  burst  forth.  The  wife  of  Die- 
trich, his  daughters,  himself,  and  the  young  officer  threw 
themselves,  crying,  into  each  other's  arms.  The  hymn 
of  the  country  was  found.  Executed  some  days  after- 
ward in  Strasburg,  the  new  song  flew  from  city  to  city, 
and  was  played  by  all  the  popular  orchestras.  Marseilles, 
adopted  it  to  be  sung  at  the  commencement  of  the  sit- 
tings of  the  clubs,  and  the  Marseillaise  spread  it  through 
France,  singing  it  along  the  public  roads.  From  this 
came  the  name  of  Marseillaise,  It  was  the  song  for  ex- 
cited men  under  the  fiery  impulse  of  liberty.  Those 
melodies  for  little  children,  just  as  immortal,  owe  their 
existence  to  circumstances  just  as  accidental.  We  mean 
the  melodies  of  Mother  Goose.  The  story  of  this  Iliad 
of  the  nursery  is  told  as  follows  :  The  mother-in  law  of 
Thomas  Fleet,  the  editor,  in  1731,  of  the  Boston  Weekly 
Rehearsal,  was  the  original  Mother  Goose  —  the  Mother 


INCONGRUITY.  20/ 

Goose  of  the  world-famous  melodies.  Mother  Goose 
belonged  to  a  wealthy  family  in  Boston,  where  her  eld- 
est daughter,  Elizabeth  Goose,  was  married  by  Cotton 
Mather,  in  17 15,  to  Fleet,  and  in  due  time  gave  birth  to 
a  son.  Like  most  mothers-in-law  in  our  own  day,  the  im- 
portance of  Mrs.  Goose  increased  with  the  appearance 
of  her  grandchild,  and  poor  Mr.  Fleet,  half  distracted  with 
her  endless  nursery  ditties,  finding  all  other  means  fail, 
tried  what  ridicule  could  effect,  and  actually  printed  a 
book,  with  the  title  "Songs  for  the  Nursery,  or  Mother 
Goose's  Melodies  for  Children,  printed  by  T.  Fleet,  at 
his  printing  house.  Pudding  Lane,  Boston.  Price,  ten 
coppers."  Mother  Goose  was  the  mother  of  nineteen 
children,  and  hence  we  may  easily  trace  the  origin  of 
that  famous  classic,  "  There  was  an  old  woman  who  lived 
in  a  shoe ;  she  had  so  many  children  she  did  n't  know 
what  to  do." 

As  to  the  plays  of  the  stage,  we  all  know  how  some  of 
them  have  gradually,  in  the  long  years,  grown  to  be  there, 
from  additions  by  actors  and  managers,  so  wholly  differ- 
ent from  what  they  are  in  literature,  that  in  important  parts 
they  would  hardly  be  recognized  as  the  same.  Sheridan's 
Critic,  with  the  numerous  "  gags  "  by  Jack  Bannister, 
King,  Miss  Pope,  Richard  Jones,  Liston,  Mrs.  Gibbs, 
Charles  Mathews,  and  other  great  actors,  is  a  famous  in- 
stance of  the  kind.  And  as  to  playing,  Mathews  says  it 
is  possible  for  a  man,  absurd  as  it  may  seem,  to  obtain 
favor  with  the  public  by  merely  attending  to  the  mechan- 
ical portion  of  the  profession,  without  any  exertion  of  his 
intellect  beyond  committing  his  words  to  memory^,  and 
speaking  to  his  "  cues  "  at  the  right  moment  and  with  the 
proper  emphasis.  He  gives  a  remarkable  illustration  of 
>'his  strange  possibility.  When  Douglas  Jerrold's  play  of 
the  Bubbles  of  the  Day  was  produced  at  Covent  Garden 
Theatre,  there  was  a  long-experienced  actor,  standing  ex- 
ceedingly well  with  the  public,  and  an  undoubted  favorite, 


208  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

who  played  one  of  the  parts  so  admirably  that  he  met 
with  unqualified  success  with  the  audience,  and  was  a 
prominent  feature  in  the  piece,  highly  praised  by  the  press, 
and  complimented  by  the  author  himself,  as  having  per- 
fectly embodied  his  conception.  After  the  play  had  run 
for  some  ten  or  fifteen  nights,  he  one  day  came  to  Mathews 
and  asked  him  as  a  favor  that  he  would  let  him  have  the 
manuscript  of  the  piece  for  a  short  time.  Certainly,  said 
Mathews  ;  but  what  do  you  want  it  for  ?  Why,  said  he, 
I  was  unfortunately  absent  from  the  reading  ;  and  I  have 
not  the  slightest  idea  what  it  is  about,  or  who  and  what 
I  am  in  it.  He  had  literally,  according  to  Mathews,  played 
his  part  admirably  for  many  nights  to  the  gratification  of 
the  public,  the  press,  and  the  author ;  and  he  had  never 
even  had  the  curiosity  to  inquire  in  what  way  he  was 
mixed  up  with  the  plot.  He  had  seized  the  instructions 
given  him  by  Jerrold  during  the  rehearsals,  and  adopted 
his  suggestions  so  correctly  that  he  was  able  to  fulfill  all 
the  requirements  of  the  character  assigned  to  him  without 
the  least  idea  of  what  he  was  doing,  or  of  the  person  whom 
he  represented.  So  it  would  seem  that  ignorance  is  not 
always  a  hinderance  to  success ;  on  the  contrary,  it  is 
sometimes  the  very  foundation  of  what  passes  for  knowl- 
edge. Take  the  wise  doctor's  remedies.  They  are  adopted 
for  the  number  that  recover  who  use  them,  not  for  the 
numbers  that  die,  who  used  them  also.  "  The  sun  gives 
light  to  their  success,  and  the  earth  covers  their  failures." 
"  If  your  physician,"  says  Montaigne,  "  does  not  think  it 
good  for  you  to  sleep,  to  drink  wine,  or  to  eat  such  and 
such  meats,  never  trouble  yourself ;  I  will  find  you  another 
that  shall  not  be  of  his  opinion."  Heine,  during  the 
eight  years  he  lay  bed-ridden  with  a  kind  of  paralysis, 
read  all  the  medical  books  which  treated  of  his  complaint. 
'  But,"  said  he  to  some  one  who  found  him  thus  engaged, 
"  what  good  this  reading  is  to  do  me  I  don't  know,  except 
that  it  will  qualify  me  to  give  lectures  in  heaven  on  the 


INCONGRUITY.  209 

ignorance  of  doctors  on  earth  about  diseases  of  the  spinal 
marrow,"  What  is  often  accepted  as  high  moral  truth  is 
only  a  small  part  of  what  the  philosopher  has  thought — ■ 
the  result  less  of  faith  than  of  skepticism ;  the  two  being 
in  about  the  proportion  of  Falstaff's  bread  to  his  sack. 

To  get  away  from  the  ideal  to  the  physical,  what  can 
at  first  blush  be  so  absurd  as  the  climatic  changes  believed 
by  some  to  be  produced  by  railroads  ?  The  desert  of 
Western  America  has  been  transformed  into  a  fertile 
plain  :  the  railroad,  they  say,  has  brought  rain.  No  ele- 
ment, we  are  told,  was  wanting  in  the  earth  itself,  nor  was 
aught  in  excess  to  enforce  sterility,  but  everywhere  there 
was  drought.  In  the  hot  dust  nothing  grew  but  stunted 
hardy  grass  and  sage  brush.  All  seemed  desolation  and 
utter  hopelessness.  Wherever  irrigation  was  tried,  its 
success  exceeded  expectation  in  developing  an  almost 
miraculous  productiveness  in  the  soil.  No  enthusiast 
dared,  however,  to  dream  of  the  possibility  of  artificial  ir- 
rigation over  all  that  enormous  expanse.  Rivers  entering 
there  would  soon  have  been  drunk  up  by  the  thirsty  earth 
and  sky.  Yet  man's  work,  it  would  seem,  has  irrigated 
that  whole  desert  by  unexpected  means.  The  railroad 
brought  rain.  Year  by  year,  since  the  Union  Pacific 
Railroad  has  been  operated  through,  the  rain-fall  had 
steadily  increased  until  the  summer  of  1873,  when  it  be- 
came, to  the  operators  of  the  road,  a  positive  nuisance. 
Icicles,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  are  fonned,  science 
tells  us,  by  the  process  of  freezing  in  sunshine  hot  enough 
to  melt  snow,  blister  the  human  skin,  and  even,  when 
concentrated,  to  burn  up  the  human  body  itself.  They 
result  from  the  fact  that  air  is  all  but  completely  trans- 
parent to  the  heat  rays  emitted  by  the  sun  —  that  is,  such 
rays  pass  through  the  air  without  warming  it.  Only  the 
scanty  fraction  of  rays  to  which  air  is  not  transparent  ex- 
pend their  force  in  raising  its  temperature.  In  the  Alps, 
Tyndall  tells  us,  when  the  liquefaction  is  copious  and  the 
«4 


2IO  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

cold  intense,  icicles  grow  to  an  enormous  size.  Over  the 
edges  (mostly  the  southern  edges)  of  the  chasms  hangs  a 
coping  of  snow,  and  from  this  depend,  like  stalactites, 
rows  of  transparent  icicles,  ten,  twenty,  thirty  ^eet  long, 
constituting  one  of  the  most  beautiful  features  of  the 
higher  crevasses.  An  icicle  would  be  incomprehensible 
if  we  did  not  know  that  the  solar  beams  may  pass  through 
the  air,  and  still  leave  it  at  an  icy  temperature.  One  of 
the  contradictions  of  ice  is,  that,  formed  at  a  temperatuie 
of  twenty-five  to  thirty  degrees  Fahrenheit,  it  is  as  diffei- 
ent  from  that  which  is  formed  when  the  temperature  has 
ranged  for  some  time  between  ten  degrees  and  one  degree, 
as  chalk  is  from  granite.  The  ice  at  the  lower  tempera- 
ture is  dense  and  hard  as  flint.  It  strikes  fire  at  the  prick 
of  a  skate.  In  St.  Petersburg,  in  1740,  when  masses  of 
it  were  turned  and  bored  for  cannon,  though  but  four 
inches  thick,  they  were  loaded  with  iron  cannon-balls  and 
a  charge  of  a  quarter  of  a  pound  of  powder,  and  fired 
without  explosion. 

The  warm-blooded,  fur-covered  cat  is  just  as  contradic- 
tory —  in  one  peculiarity  at  least.  Gilbert  White  says, 
"  There  is  a  propensity  belonging  to  common  house-cats 
that  is  very  remarkable  ;  that  is,  their  violent  fondness 
for  fish,  which  appears  to  be  their  most  favorite  food  :  and 
yet  nature  in  this  instance  seems  to  have  planted  in  them 
an  appetite  that,  unassisted,  they  know  not  how  to  gratify ; 
for  of  all  quadrupeds  cats  are  the  least  disposed  toward 
water  ;  and  will  not,  when  they  can  avoid  it,  deign  to  wet 
a  foot,  much  less  to  plunge  into  that  element."  And  there 
is  quite  as  curious  a  fact  pertaining  to  the  rat.  Natural- 
ists say  that  his  propensity  to  gnaw  must  not  be  attributed 
altogether  to  a  reckless  determination  to  overcome  im- 
,«ediments.  The  never-ceasing  action  of  his  teeth  is  not 
a  pastime,  but  a  necessity  of  his  existence.  The  ceaseless 
working  of  his  incisors  against  some  hard  substance  is 
accessary  to  keep  them  down,  and  if  he  did  not  gnaw  foi 


INCONGRUITY.  211 

his  subsistence  he  would  be  compelled  to  gnaw  to  prevent 
his  jaw  being  gradually  locked  by  their  rapid  development. 
And  there  is  the  tortoise.  The  same  deliglitful  naturalist 
we  have  quoted  had  a  pet  one,  of  whose  habits  he  made 
many  curious  notes.  He  says  no  part  of  its  behavior 
ever  struck  him  more  than  the  extreme  timidity  it  always 
expressed  with  regard  to  rain  ;  for  though  it  had  a  shell 
that  would  secure  it  against  the  wheel  of  a  loaded  cart, 
yet  did  't  discover  as  much  solicitude  about  rain  as  a  lady 
dressed  in  all  her  best  attire,  shuffling  away  on  the  lirst 
sprinklings,  and  running  its  head  up  in  a  corner. 

But  man,  at  last,  is  the  creature  fullest  of  contradictions, 
and  his  vanity  is  at  the  bottom  of  most  of  them.  "  What 
a  sensible  and  agreeable  companion  is  that  gentleman  who 
has  just  left  us,"  said  the  famous  Charles  Townshend  to 
the  worthy  and  sensible  Fitzherbert ;  "  I  never  passed  an 
evening  with  a  more  entertaining  acquaintance  in  my  life." 
"What  could  entertain  you?  the  gentleman  never  opened 
his  lips."  "  I  grant  you,  my  dear  Fitz,  but  he  listened 
faithfully  to  what  I  said,  and  always  laughed  in  the  right 
place."  Darwin,  speaking  of  one  of  his  walks  in  New 
Zealand,  says,  "  I  should  have  enjoyed  it  more,  if  my 
companion,  the  chief,  had  not  possessed  extraordinary  con- 
versational powers.  I  knew  only  three  words — 'good,* 
'bad,'  and  'yes;'  and  with  these  I  answered  all  his  re- 
marks, without,  of  course,  having  understood  one  word  he 
said.  This,  however,  was  quite  sufficient ;  I  was  a  good 
listener,  an  agreeable  person,  and  he  never  ceased  talking 
to  me."  John  Chester  was  a  delightful  companion  to 
Coleridge,  on  the  same  principle.  This  Chester,  says 
Hazlitt,  was  one  of  those  who  was  attracted  to  Coleridge's 
discourse  as  flies  are  to  honey,  or  bees  in  swarming-time 
to  the  sound  of  a  brass  pan.  He  gave  Huzlitt  his  private 
opinion,  though  he  rarely  opened  his  lips,  that  Coleridge 
was  a  wonderful  man  !  "  He  followed  Coleridge  into 
Germany,  where  the  Kantian  philosophers  were  puzzled 


212  LIBRARY    NOTES. 

how  to  bring  him  under  any  of  their  categories.  When 
he  sat  down  at  table  with  his  idol,  John's  felicity  was  com- 
plete ;  Sir  Walter  Scott's,  or  Blackwood's,  when  they  sat 
down  at  the  table  with  the  king,  was  not  more  so.  Once 
he  was  astonished,"  continues  Hazlitt,  "  that  I  should  be 
able  to  suggest  anything  to  Coleridge  that  he  did  not  al- 
ready know  !  "  "  Demosthenes  Taylor,  as  he  was  called 
(that  is,  the  editor  of  Demosthenes),  was  the  most  silent 
man,"  said  Dr.  Johnson  to  Boswell,  "  the  merest  statue 
of  a  man,  that  I  have  ever  seen,  I  once  dined  in  company 
with  him,  and  all  he  said  during  the  whole  time  was  not 
more  than  Richard.  How  a  man  should  say  only  Richard, 
it  is  not  easy  to  imagine.  But  it  was  thus  :  Dr.  Douglass 
was  talking  of  Dr.  Zachary  Grey,  and  was  ascribing  to 
him  something  that  was  written  by  Dr.  Richard  Grey.  So, 
to  correct  him,  Taylor  said  (imitating  his  affected  senten- 
tious emphasis  and  nod)  '  Richard.'  "  "  Demosthenes  " 
must  have  been  "  a  sensible  and  agreeable  companion." 
That  one  word  was  to  the  point,  and  was  more  effective 
than  a  dozen  would  have  been  to  a  man  like  Johnson, 
Two  words,  however,  if  we  are  to  believe  the  story  chroni- 
cled by  John  of  Brompton  of  the  mother  of  Thomas  k 
Becket,  performed  a  still  more  memorable  service.  His 
father,  Gilbert  h.  Becket,  was  taken  prisoner  during  one  of 
the  Crusades  by  a  Syrian  emir,  and  held  for  a  consider- 
able period  in  a  kind  of  honorable  captivity.  A  daughter 
of  the  emir  saw  him  at  her  father's  table,  heard  him  con- 
verse, fell  in  love  with  him,  and  offered  to  arrange  the 
means  by  which  both  might  escape  to  Europe.  The  proj- 
ect only  partly  succeeded ;  he  escaped,  but  she  was  left 
behind.  Soon  afterward,  however,  she  contrived  to  elude 
her  attendants,  and  after  many  marvelous  adventures  by 
sea  and  land  arrived  in  England,  knowing  but  two  English 
words,  "  London  "  and  "  Gilbert."  By  constantly  repeat- 
ing the  first,  she  was  directed  to  the  city  ;  and  there,  fol 
lowed  by  a  mob,  she  walked  for  months  from  street  to 


INCONGRUITY.  213 

Street,  crying  as  she  went,  "  Gilbert  !  Gilbert !  "  She  at 
last  came  to  the  street  in  which  her  lover  lived.  The 
mob  and  the  name  attracted  the  attention  of  a  servant  in 
the  house ;  Gilbert  recognized  her ;  and  they  were  mar- 
ried !  But  there  remains  one  to  be  spoken  of  who  gained 
immortal  reputation  for  his  sayings,  who  may  be  said  to 
have  never  said  anything  at  all  of  his  own.  Joe  Miller, 
whose  name  as  a  wit  is  now  current  wherever  the  English 
language  is  spoken,  was,  when  living,  himself  a  jest  for 
dullness.  According  to  report,  Miller,  who  was  an  excel- 
lent comic  actor,  but  taciturn  and  saturnine,  "  was  in  the 
habit  of  spending  his  afternoons  at  the  Black  Jack,  a  well- 
known  public-house  in  London,  which  at  that  time  was 
frequented  by  the  most  respectable  tradesmen  in  the 
neighborhood,  who  from  Joe's  imperturbable  gravity, 
whenever  any  risible  saying  was  recounted,  ironically  as- 
cribed it  to  him.  After  his  death,  having  left  his  family 
unprovided  for,  advantage  was  taken  of  this  badinage.  A 
Mr,  Motley,  a  well-known  dramatist  of  that  day,  was  em- 
ployed to  collect  all  the  stray  jests  then  current  on  the 
town.  Joe  Miller's  name  was  affixed  to  them,  and  from 
that  day  to  this  the  man  who  never  uttered  a  jest  has 
been  the  reputed  author  of  every  jest." 


VIII. 

MUTATIONS. 

Swift  left  some  thoughts  on  various  subjects  —  acute 
and  profound  —  which  it  would  appear  were  jotted  down 
at  different  periods  of  life,  and  in  different  humors.  In 
his  most  prosperous  days,  when  he  dreamed  of  becoming 
a  bishop,  he  might  have  written  hopefully,  "  No  wise  man 
ever  wished  to  be  younger."  At  a  much  later  time  in 
life  he  might  have  written,  sagely  and  sadly,  "  Every  man 
desireth  to  live  long,  but  no  man  would  be  old."  We  can 
imagine  that  he  wrote  the  former  just  after  he  received 
the  deanery  of  St.  Patrick,  and  the  latter  just  after  he 
returned  from  the  walk  in  the  neighborhood  of  Dublin, 
referred  to  by  the  author  of  Night  Thoughts.  "  Perceiv- 
ing he  did  not  follow  us,"  says  Young,  "  I  went  back,  and 
found  him  fixed  as  a  statue,  and  earnestly  gazing  upward 
at  a  noble  elm,  which  in  its  uppermost  branches  was 
much  decayed.  Pointing  at  it,  he  said,  '  I  shall  be  like 
that  tree  ;  I  shall  die  at  the  top.'  " 

Bolingbroke,  writing  to  Swift,  says,  "  It  is  now  six  in 
the  morning  ;  I  recall  the  time  —  and  am  glad  it  is  over 
—  when  about  this  hour  I  used  to  be  going  to  bed  sur- 
feited with  pleasure,  or  jaded  with  business ;  my  head 
often  full  of  schemes,  and  my  heart  as  often  full  of  anx- 
iety. Is  it  a  misfortune,  think  you,  that  I  rise  at  this 
hour  refreshed,  serene,  and  calm  :  that  the  past  and  even 
the  present  affairs  of  life  stand  like  obiects  at  a  distance 
from  me,  where  I  can  keep  off  the  disagreeable,  so  as 
not  to  be  strongly  affected  by  them,  and  from  whence  I 
can  draw  the  others  nearer  to  me  ? " 


MUTATIONS.  215 

De  Foe  moralizes  in  memorable  language  :  "  I  know 
too  much  of  the  world  to  expect  good  in  it,  and  have 
learned  to  value  it  too  little  to  be  concerned  at  the  evil. 
I  have  gone  through  a  life  of  wonders,  and  am  the  sub- 
ject of  a  vast  variety  of  providences.  I  have  been  fed 
more  by  miracles  than  Elijah  when  the  ravens  were  his 
purveyors.  I  have  some  time  ago  summed  up  the  scenes 
of  my  life  in  this  distich  :  — 

'  No  man  has  tasted  differing  fortunes  more ; 
And  thirteen  times  I  have  been  rich  and  poor.' 

In  the  school  of  affliction  I  have  learnt  more  philosophy 
than  at  the  academy,  and  more  divinity  than  from  the 
pulpit.  In  prison  I  have  learnt  that  liberty  does  not  con- 
sist in  open  doors  and  the  egress  and  regress  of  locomo- 
tion. I  have  seen  the  rough  side  of  the  world  as  well  as 
the  smooth  ;  and  have  in  less  than  half  a  year  tasted  the 
difference  between  the  closet  of  a  king  and  the  dungeon 
of  Newgate.  I  have  suffered  deeply  for  cleaving  to  prin- 
ciples, of  which  integrity  I  have  lived  to  say,  none  but 
those  I  suffered  for  ever  reproached  me  with." 

We  are  told  by  Middleton  that  "before  Cicero  left 
Sicily,  at  the  end  of  his  term  as  quaestor,  he  made  the 
tour  of  the  island,  to  see  everything  in  it  that  was  curi- 
ous, and  especially  the  city  of  Syracuse,  which  had  al- 
ways made  the  principal  figure  in  its  history.  Here  his 
first  request  to  the  magistrates,  who  were  showing  him 
the  curiosities  of  the  place,  was  to  let  him  see  the  tomb 
of  Archimedes,  whose  name  had  done  so  much  honor  to 
it ;  but  to  his  surprise,  he  perceived  that  they  knew  noth- 
ing at  all  of  the  matter,  and  even  denied  that  there  was 
any  such  tomb  remaining  ;  yet  as  he  was  assured  of  it 
beyond  all  doubt,  by  the  concurrent  testimony  of  writers, 
and  remembered  the  verses  inscribed,  and  that  there  was 
a  sphere  with  a  cylinder  engraved  on  some  part  of  it,  he 
would  not  be  dissuaded  from  the  pains  of  searching  it 
out.     When  they  had  carried  him,  therefore,  to  the  gate 


2l6  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

where  the  greatest  number  of  their  old  sepulchres  stood, 
he  observed,  in  a  spot  overgrown  with  shrubs  and  briers, 
a  small  column,  whose  head  just  appeared  above  the 
bushes,  '  with  the  figure  of  a  sphere  and  a  cylinder  upon 
it ;  this,  he  presently  told  the  company,  was  the  thing 
they  were  looking  for  ;  and  sending  in  some  men  to  clear 
the  ground  of  the  brambles  and  rubbish,  he  found  the  in- 
scription also  which  he  expected,  though  the  latter  part 
of  all  the  verses  was  effaced.  Thus,'  says  he,  'one  of  the 
noblest  cities  of  Greece,  and  once  likewise  the  most 
learned,  had  known  nothing  of  the  monument  of  its  most 
deserving  and  ingenious  citizen,  if  it  had  not  been  ais 
covered  to  them  by  a  native  of  Arpinum.'  " 

Anaxagoras  knew  the  short  memory  of  the  people,  and 
chose  a  happy  way  to  lengthen  it,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  perpetuate  himself.  When  the  chief  persons  of  the 
city  paid  him  a  visit,  and  asked  him  whether  he  had  any 
commands  for  them,  he  answered  that  he  only  desired 
that  children  might  be  permitted  to  play  every  year  dur- 
ing the  month  in  which  he  died.  His  request  was  re- 
spected, and  the  custom  continued  for  ages. 

"  Ruins,"  in  the  impressive  language  of  Alger,  "  sym- 
bolize the  wishes  and  fate  t)f  man  ;  the  weakness  of  his 
works,  the  fleetingness  of  his  existence.  Who  can  visit 
Thebes,  in  whose  crowded  crypts,  as  he  enters,  a  flight  of 
bats  chokes  him  with  the  dust  of  disintegrating  priests 
and  kings  ;  see  the  sheep  nibbling  herbage  between  the 
fallen  cromlechs  of  Stonehenge  ;  or  confront  a  dilapi- 
dated stronghold  of  the  Middle  Ages,  where  the  fox  looks 
out  of  the  window  and  the  thistle  nods  on  the  wall,  with- 
out thinking  of  these  things  ?     Tliey  feelingly  persuade 

him  what  he  is Tyre  was  situated  of  old  at  the 

entry  of  the  sea,  the  beautiful  mistress  of  the  earth, 
haughty  in  her  purple  garments,  the  tiara  of  commerce 
on  her  brow.  Now  the  dust  has  been  scraped  from  her 
till  she  has  become  a  blistered  rock,  whereon  the  solitary 


MUTATIONS.  217 

fisher  spreads  his  nets.  A  few  tattered  huts  stand  among 
shapeless  masses  of  masonry  where  glorious  Carthage 
stood  ;  the  homes  of  a  few  husbandmen  where  voluptu- 
ous Corinth  once  lifted  her  splendid  array  of  marble  pal- 
aces and  golden  towers.  Many  a  nation,  proud  and  pop- 
ulous in  the  elder  days  of  history,  like  Elephanta,  or  Mem- 
phis, is  now  merely  a  tomb  and  a  shadowy  name.  Pom- 
peii and  Herculaneum  are  empty  sepulchres,  which  that 
fatal  flight  before  the  storm  of  ashes  and  lava  cheated 
of  their  occupants  ;  the  traveler  sees  poppies  blooming 

in  the  streets  where  chariots  once  flashed Tigers 

foray  in  the  palace  yards  of  Persepolis,  and  camels  browse 
in  Babylon  on  the  site  of  Belshazzar's  throne  ;  at  Baalbec, 
lizards  overrun  the  altars  of  the  Temple  of  the  Sun,  and 
in  the  sculptured  friezes,  here  the  nests  of  obscene  birds, 
there  the  webs  of  spiders." 

"  The  Roman  Emperor  Hadrian,"  philosophizes  Hil- 
lard,  "  after  many  years  of  care  and  conquest,  with  a 
marked  taste  for  architecture,  and  the  resources  of  the 
whole  civilized  world  at  his  command,  resolved  to  sur- 
round his  declining  life  with  reproductions  of  all  the  strik- 
ing objects  which  he  had  seen  in  the  course  of  his  world- 
wide wanderings.  He  selected  for  the  site  of  this  gigantic 
enterprise  a  spot  singularly  favorable  to  his  objects.  It 
was  a  range  of  gently  undulating  hills,  of  about  three 
miles  in  extent,  with  a  natural  boundary,  formed  in  part 
by  a  winding  valley,  and  partly  by  walls  of  rock.  On  the 
east,  it  was  overlooked  by  the  wooded  heights  of  the  Sa- 
bine Mountains  ;  and,  on  the  west,  it  commanded  a  view 
of  the  Campagna  and  the  Eternal  City,  whose  temples 
and  obelisks,  relieved  against  the  golden  sky  of  sunset, 
must  have  soothed  the  mind  of  its  imperial  master  with 
thoughts  of  duties  performed  and  of  repose,  earned  by 
toil.  The  natural  inequalities  and  undulations  of  the  site, 
which  furnished  heights,  plains,  valleys,  and  glens,  aided 
and  lightened  the  tasks  of  the  architect  and  the   land- 


2l8  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

scape  gardener.  The  emperor  is  said  to  have  inclosed  a 
space  of  eight  or  ten  miles  in  circuit,  so  that,  if  the  state- 
ment were  true,  the  villa  and  its  appurtenances  occupied 
an  area  greater  than  that  of  Pompeii.  Here  he  set  to 
work  with  armies  of  laborers  and  mountains  of  gold,  and, 
in  an  incredibly  short  space  of  time,  the  ground  was  cov- 
ered with  an  amazing  number  of  costly  and  extensive 
structures,  which  had  risen  like  exhalations  from  the  soil. 
Besides  the  imperial  palace,  there  was  a  library,  an  acad- 
emy, a  lyceum,  numerous  temples,  one  or  more  theatres, 
a  covered  walk  or  portico,  and  spacious  barracks  for  the 
accommodation  of  the  Praetorian  guards.  Besides  these, 
a  glen  through  which  a  stream  flowed  was  made  into  a 
miniature  likeness  of  the  vale  of  Tempe  ;  a  flowery  plain 
was  called  by  the  name  of  the  Elysian  Fields  ;  and  an 
immense  cavern,  filled  with  sunless  waters,  recalled  the 

gloom  of  Tartarus The  ruins,  at  the  present  time, 

seen  hastily  and  without  the  interpretation  of  an  intelli- 
gent guide,  are  a  confused  mass  of  decay,  revealing  very 

little  of  their  former  destination  or  structure A 

considerable  portion  of  the  space  formerly  occupied  by  the 
villa  is  now  under  cultivation,  and  nature,  aided  by  a  soft 
sky  and  a  productive  soil,  has  been  busy  in  healing  the 
gaping  wounds  of  time,  and  covering  unsightly  ruin  with 

a  mantle  of  bloom  and  beauty The  whole  scene 

is  now  a  broad  page  on  which  is  stamped  an  impressive 
lesson  ofi  the  vanity  of  human  wishes.  The  great  em- 
peror, even  while  his  last  workmen  were  gathering  up 
their  tools  to  depart,  was  attacked  by  a  mortal  disease  ; 
and,  seventy  years  after  his  death,  Caracalla  began  the 
work  of  spoliation  by  carrying  off  its  most  costly  marbles 
to  decorate  the  baths  whose  ruins  are  in  turn  monuments 
to  his  name  in  Rome.  A  recent  French  traveler  states 
that  a  species  of  syringa,  which  Hadrian  brought  from  the 
East  and  planted  here,  still  sheds  its  fragrance  over  these 
Tiins ;  this  delicate  and  fragile  flower,  a  part  of  the  per- 


IvIUTATIONS.  219 

ennial  life  of  Nature,  remaining  faithful  to  tht  emperor's 
memory,  while  stone,  marble,  and  bronze  have  long  since 
betrayed  their  trust." 

"  Neither  the  troubles,  Zenobia,"   mused  La  Bruybre, 
"  which  disturb  your  empire,  nor  the  war  which  since  the 
death  of  the  king,  your  husband,  you  have  so  heroically 
maintained  against  a  powerful  nation,  diminish  anything 
of  your  magnificence.     You  have  preferred  the  banks  of 
the  Euphrates  to  any  other  country,  and  resolved  to  raise 
a  stately  fabric  there.     The  air  is  healthful  and  temper- 
ate ;  the  situation  charming ;  that  sacred  wood  makes  an 
awful  shade  on  the  west ;  the  Syrian  gods,  who  sometimes 
dwell  on  earth,  could  not  choose   a  finer  abode.     The 
plain  about  it  is  peopled  with  men  who  are  constantly 
employed   in  shaping   and   cutting,  going   and   coming, 
transporting  the  timber  of  Lebanon,  brass,  and  porphyry. 
Their  tools  and  engines  are  heard  in  the  air;  and  the 
travelers  who  pass  that  way  to  Arabia   expect  on  their 
return  home  to  see  it  finished  with  all  the  splendor  you 
design  to  bestow  on  it,  ere  you  or  the  princes  your  chil- 
dren make  it  your  dwelling.     Spare  nothing,  great  queen, 
nor  gold,  nor  the  labor  of  the  most  excellent  artists ;  let 
the  Phidiases  and  Zeuxises  of  your  age  show  the  utmost 
of  their  art  on  your  walls  and  ceilings.     Mark  out  vast 
and  delicious  gardens,  whose  beauty  shall  appear  to  be 
all  enchantment,  and  not  the  workmanship  of  man.     Ex- 
haust your  treasures,  and  tire  your  industry  on  this  in- 
comparable edifice,  and  after  you  have  given  it  the  last 
perfection,  some  grazier  or  other,  who  lives  on  the  neigh- 
boring sands  of  Palmyra,  enriched  by  taking  toll  on  your 
rivers,  shall  buy  with  ready  money  this  royal  mansion,  to 
adorn  it,  and  make  it  worthy  of  him  and  his  fortune." 

Gibbon  thus  concludes  his  review  of  the  entire  series 
of  Byzantine  emperors  :  "  In  a  composition  of  some  days, 
m  a  perusal  of  some  hours,  six  hundred  years  have  rolled 
away,  and  the  duration  of  a  life  or  reign  is  contracted  to 


220  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

a  fleeting  moment ;  the  grave  is  ever  beside  the  throne : 
the  success  of  a  criminal  is  almost  instantly  followed  by 
the  loss  of  his  prize  ;  and  our  immortal  reason  survives 
and  disdains  the  sixty  phantoms  of  kings  who  have 
passed  before  our  eyes,  and  faintly  dwell  on  our  remem- 
brance." 

"  I  went  to-day,"  said  Cobbett,  "  to  see  the  house  I 
formerly  occupied.  How  small  !  It  is  always  thus  :  the 
words  large  and  small  are  carried  about  with  us  in  our 
minds,  and  we  forget  real  dimensions.  The  idea,  such  as 
it  was  received,  remains  during  our  absence  from  the 
object.  When  I  returned  to  England  in  1800,  after  an 
absence  from  the  country  parts  of  it  for  sixteen  years,  the 
trees,  the  hedges,  even  the  parks  and  woods,  seemed  so 
small !  It  made  me  laugh  to  hear  little  gutters,  that  I 
could  jump  over,  called  rivers  !  The  Thames  was  but  a 
*  creek  ! '  But  when,  in  about  a  month  after  my  arrival 
in  London,  I  went  to  Farnham,  the  place  of  my  birth, 
what  was  my  surprise  !  Everything  was  become  so  piti- 
fully small !  .  .  .  .  There  is  a  hill  not  far  from  the  town 
called  Crooksbury  Hill,  which  rises  up  out  of  a  flat  in  the 
form  of  a  cone,  and  is  planted  with  Scotch  fir-trees. 
Here  I  used  to  take  the  eggs  and  young  ones  of  crows 
and  magpies.  This  hill  was  a  famous  object  in  the 
neighborhood.  It  served  as  the  superlative  degree  of 
height.  'As  high  as  Crooksbury  Hill'  meant,  with  us, 
the  utmost  degree  of  height.  Therefore  the  first  object 
that  my  eyes  sought  was  this  hill.  I  could  not  believe 
my  eyes !  Literally  speaking,  I  for  a  moment  thought 
the  famous  hill  removed,  and  a  little  heap  put  in  its 
stead ;  for  I  had  seen  in  New  Brunswick  a  single  rock, 
or  hill  of  solid  rock,  ten  times  as  big,  and  four  or  five 

times  as   high What  a  change  !     What  scenes  I 

had  gone  through  !  How  altered  my  state  !  I  had  dined 
the  day  before  at  a  secretary  of  state's,  in  company  with 
Mr.  Pitt,  and  had  been  waited  upon  by  men  in  gaudy  liv- 


MUTATIONS.  221 

eries !  I  had  had  nobody  to  assist  me  in  the  world.  No 
teachers  of  any  sort.  Nobody  to  shelter  me  from  the 
consequences  of  bad,  and  no  one  to  counsel  me  to  good 
behavior.  I  felt  proud.  The  distinctions  of  rank,  birth, 
and  wealth,  all  became  nothing  in  my  eyes  ;  and  from 
that  moment — less  than  a  month  from  my  arrival  in  Eng- 
land —  I  resolved  never  to  bend  before  them." 

"  We  read  in  the  Memoirs  of  Moore,"  says  a  writer  on 
M.  Guizot,  in  the  London  Quarterly,  1854,  "that  in  1820 
he  was  present  at  a  performance  in  Paris,  of  Tarare,  an 
opera  of  Beaumarchais,  which  was  written  in  1787,  at  a 
period  when  the  promulgation  of  liberal  ideas,  with  a  cer- 
tain infusion  of  science,  was  the  fashion  in  Paris.  Ac- 
cordingly, while  Nature  and  the  Genius  of  Heat  are 
trilling  in  a  duet  the  laws  of  gravitation,  Tarare  (a  vir- 
tuous soldier)  defends  his  wife  from  the  assaults  of  the 
monarch  of  Ormuz,  who,  being  finally  defeated,  kills 
himself,  and  Tarare  is  proclaimed  king  in  his  place. 
Only  three  years  afterward  Louis  XVI.,  having  be- 
come a  constitutional  sovereign,  and  Bailly  (who  had 
shortly  to  pay  with  his  head  for  his  patriotic  illusions) 
being  Maire  of  Paris,  Tarare  was  not  allowed  to  be  acted 
in  its  original  form.  Beaumarchais  fitted  it  to  the  altered 
circumstances,  and  in  its  remodeled  shape,  Tarare  be- 
comes a  constitutional  king.  Under  the  Republic,  Tarare 
was  not  allowed  to  be  a  monarch  at  all ;  and  when  the 
opera  was  performed  in  1795,  the  victorious  soldier  in- 
dignantly refuses  the  crown.  Under  Bonaparte,  Tarare 
was  again  recast  to  bring  it  into  harmony  with  the  delu- 
sion of  the  hour;  and  lastly,  when  in  1820  the  perform- 
ance was  witnessed  by  Moore,  Tarare,  become  more  mon- 
archal than  ever,  displays  his  loyalty  by  defending  the 
king  of  Ormuz  from  a  popular  insurrection,  and  ultimately 
falls  with  emotion  at  the  feet  of  the  tyrant,  who  has  the 
magnanimity  to  restore  his  wife  to  him." 

St.  Austin,  with  his  mother  Monica,  was  led  one  day 


222  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

by  a  Roman  praetor  to  see  the  tomb  of  Caesar.  Himself 
thus  describes  the  corpse  :  "  It  looked  of  a  blue  mould, 
the  bone  of  the  nose  laid  bare,  the  flesh  of  the  nether 
lip  quite  fallen  off,  his  mouth  full  of  worms,  and  in  his 
eye-pit  a  hungry  toad,  feasting  upon  the  remnant  portion 
of  flesh  and  moisture :  and  so  he  dwelt  in  his  house  of 
darkness." 

A  traveler  in  Ceylon,  who  visited  the  ruins  of  ancient 
Mahagam,  says  that  one  of  the  ruined  buildings  had  ap' 
parently  rested  upon  seventy-two  pillars.  These  were 
still  erect,  standing  in  six  lines  of  twelve  columns.  This 
building  must  have  formed  an  oblong  of  three  hundred 
feet  by  two  "hundred  and  fifty.  The  stone  causeway 
which  passed  through  the  ruins  was  about  two  miles  in 
length,  being  for  the  most  part  overgrown  with  low  jungle 
and  prickly  cactus.  The  first  we  hear  of  this  city  is  286 
B.  c. ;  but  we  have  no  account  of  the  era  or  cause  of  its 
destruction.  The  records  of  Ceylon  give  no  satisfactory 
account  of  it.  The  wild  elephants  come  out  of  the 
jungles  and  rub  their  backs  against  the  columns  of  this 
forgotten  temple,  as  the  naked  Indians  gamble  with 
forked  sticks  on  the  desolate  ruins  of  Central  America. 

But  a  few  years  sometimes  change  the  whole  face  of 
a  country.  Sir  Woodbine  Parish  informed  Darwin  that 
during  the  three  years'  drought  in  Buenos  Ayres,  begin- 
ning in  1827,  the  ground  being  so  long  dry,  such  quanti- 
ties of  dust  were  blown  about  that  in  the  open  country 
the  landmarks  became  obliterated,  and  people  could  not 
tell  the  limits  of  their  estates. 

But  what  shall  we  say  of  the  instability  of  human 
greatness  ?  The  career  and  end  of  Pompey  furnish  a 
striking  example.  "  He  who  a  few  days  before  com 
manded  kings  and  consuls,  and  all  the  noblest  of  Rome, 
was  sentenced  to  die  by  a  council  of  slaves ;  murdered 
by  a  base  deserter;  cast  out  naked  and  headless  on  the 
Egyptian  strand ;  and  when  the  whole  earth,  as  Velleius 


MUTATIONS.  223 

says,  had  scarce  been  sufficient  for  his  victories,  could 
not  find  a  spot  upon  it  at  last  for  a  grave.  His  body  was 
burnt  on  the  shore  by  one  of  his  freedmen,  with  the 
planks  of  an  old  fishing-boat ;  and  his  ashes,  being  con- 
veyed to  Rome,  were  deposited  privately  by  his  wife  Cor- 
nelia in  a  vault  of  his  Alban  villa." 

Aristotle,  that  prince  of  all  true  thinkers,  loaded  with 
immortal  glory,  was  compelled  to  flee  suddenly  and  by 
stealth  to  Chalcis,  in  order  to  save  his  life,  and  spare,  as 
he  said,  the  Athenians  a  new  crime  against  philosophy. 
There,  it  is  believed,  the  great  man,  in  his  old  age, 
wearied  with  persecutions,  poisoned  himself. 

The  venerable  Hildebrand,  the  greatest  of  all  the 
popes,  after  the  herculean  labors  of  his  self-devoted  and 
mighty  career,  crushed  by  an  accumulation  of  hardships, 
said,  "I  have  loved  justice  and  hated  iniquity;  therefore 
I  die  in  exile." 

"The  ceremony  of  Galileo's  abjuration,"  says  Sir  Da- 
vid Brewster,  in  his  biography  of  that  great  man,  "was 
one  of  exciting  interest  and  of  awful  formality.  Clothed 
in  the  sackcloth  of  a  repentant  criminal,  the  venerable 
sage  fell  upon  his  knees  before  the  assembled  cardinals ; 
and,  laying  his  hands  upon  the  Holy  Evangelists,  he  in- 
voked the  divine  aid  in  abjuring  and  detesting,  and  vow- 
ing never  again  to  teach,  the  doctrine  of  the  earth's  mo- 
tion and  of  the  sun's  stability.  He  pledged  himself  that 
he  would  never  again,  either  in  words  or  in  writing,  prop- 
agate such  heresies  ;  and  he  swore  that  he  would  fulfill 
and  observe  the  penances  which  had  been  inflicted  upon 
him.  At  the  conclusion  of  this  ceremony,  in  which  he 
recited  his  abjuration  word  for  word,  and  then  signed 
it,  he  was  conveyed,  in  conformity  with  his  sentence,  to 
the  prison  of  the  Inquisition."  All  because  it  had  been 
said  that  the  "sun  runneth  about  from  one  end  of  heaven 
to  the  other,"  and  that  "  the  foundations  of  the  earth  are 
50  firmly  fixed  that  they  cannot  be  moved." 


224  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

Think  of  this  in  connection  with  the  fact  that  "in  five 
years  Charles  II.  touched  twenty-three  thousand  six  liun- 
dred  and  one  of  his  subjects  for  the  evil ;  that  the 
bishops  invented  a  sort  of  heathen  service  for  the  occa- 
sion ;  that  the  unchristianlike,  superstitious  ceremony 
was  performed  in  public  ;  and  that,  as  soon  as  prayers 
were  ended,  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  brought  a  towel, 
and  Ihe  Earl  of  Pembroke  a  basin  and  ewer,  who,  after 
they  had  made  obeisance  to  his  majesty,  kneeled  down 
till  his  majesty  had  washed."  Dr.  Wiseman,  an  eminent 
surgeon  of  that  period,  in  writing  on  scrofula,  says, 
"  However,  I  must  needs  profess  that  his  majesty  (Charles 
II.)  cureth  more  in  any  one  year  than  all  the  chirurgeons 
of  London  have  done  in  an  age." 

And  think  at  the  same  time  of  the  trial  of  a  mother 
and  her  daughter,  eleveii  years  old,  before  "  the  great 
and  good  Sir  Matthew  Hale,"  then  Lord  Chief  Baron, 
for  witchcraft ;  and  their  conviction  and  execution  at 
Bury  St.  Edmunds,  principally  on  the  evidence  of  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  one  of  the  first  physicians  and  scholars 
of  his  day. 

In  Fuller's  Church  History  there  is  a  curious  fact, 
showing  the  power  of  superstition  over  even  such  a  man 
as  Wolsey.  The  great  cardinal  "  in  his  life-time  was  in- 
formed by  some  fortune-tellers  that  he  should  have  his 
end  at  Kingston.  This  his  credulity  interpreted  of  King- 
ston-on-Thames ;  which  made  him  always  avoid  the  rid- 
ing through  that  town,  though  the  nearest  way  from  his 
house  to  the  court.  Afterward,  understanding  that  he 
was  to  be  committed  by  the  king's  express  orders  to  the 
charge  of  Sir  Anthony  Kingston,  it  struck  to  his  heai  t ; 
too  late  perceiving  himself  deceived  by  that  father  of  lies 
in  his  homonymous  prediction," 

But  credulity  seems  to  have  had  a  foundation  place 
in  the  characters  of  some  of  the  world's  greatest  men. 
There,  for  instance,  is  Hooker,  author  of  that  great  work, 


MUTATIONS.  225 

Ecclesiastical  Polity,  —  according  to  Hallam  "  the  finest 
as  well  as  the  most  philosophical  writer  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan period  ; "  according  to  Lecky  "  the  most  majestic 
of  English  writers."  Being  appointed  to  preach  a  ser- 
mon at  St.  Paul's  Cross,  London,  he  lodged  at  the  Shu- 
namite's  house,  a  dwelling  appropriated  to  preachers, 
and  was  skillfully  persuaded  by  the  landlady  "  that  it  was 
best  for  him  to  have  a  wife  that  might  prove  a  nurse  to 
him,  such  an  one  as  might  prolong  his  life,  and  make  it 
more  comfortable,  and  such  an  one  as  she  could  and 
would  provide  for  him  if  he  thought  fit  to  marry."  The 
unsuspecting  young  divine  agreed  to  abide  by  her  choice, 
which  fell  upon  her  own  daughter,  who  proved  to  be  not 
only  "a  silly,  clownish  woman,"  but  a  very  Xantippe. 
Izaak  Walton,  in  his  biography  of  Hooker,  thus  philoso- 
phizes upon  this  remarkable  marriage  :  "  This  choice  of 
Mr.  H.  (if  it  were  his  choice)  may  be  wondered  at ;  but 
let  us  consider  that  the  prophet  Ezekiel  says,  '  There  is  a 
wheel  within  a  wheel ; '  a  secret,  sacred  wheel  of  Provi- 
dence (not  visible  in  marriages),  guided  by  his  hand,  that 
*  allows  not  the  race  to  the  swift,'  nor  '  bread  to  the  wise,' 
nor  good  wives  to  good  men  ;  and  He  that  can  bring 
good  out  of  evil  (for  mortals  are  blind  to  this  reason) 
only  knows  why  this  blessing  was  denied  to  patient  Job, 
to  meek  Moses,  and  to  our  as  meek  and  patient  Mr. 
Hooker."  Farther  on,  by  way  of  explanation  and  apology, 
old  Izaak  quaintly  says,  "God  and  nature  blessed  him 
with  so  blessed  a  bashfulness,  that  as  in  his  younger  days 
his  pupils  might  easily  look  him  out  of  countenance,  so 
neither  then,  nor  in  his  age,  did  he  ever  willingly  look 
any  man  in  the  face :  and  was  of  so  mild  and  humble  a 
nature,  that  his  poor  parish  clerk  and  he  did  never  talk 
but  with  both  their  hats  on  or  both  off  at  the  same  time : 
and  to  this  may  be  added,  that  though  he  was  not  pur- 
blind, yet  he  was  short  or  weak  sighted  ;  and  where  he 
&xed  his  eyes  at  the  beginning  of  his  sermon,  there  they 
IS 


226  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

continued  till  it  was  ended  :  and  the  reader  has  a  liberty 
to  believe,  that  his  modesty  and  dim  sight  were  some  of 
the  reasons  why  he  trusted  Mrs.  Churchman  to  choose 
his  wife."  His  anger  is  said  to  have  been  like  a  vial  of 
clear  water,  which,  when  shook,  beads  at  the  top,  but  in- 
stantly subsides,  without  any  soil  or  sediment  of  unchari- 
tableness. 

Nobody  knows,  to  say  truth,  how  much  the  great,  mod 
est  Hooker  was  benefited  by  what  appeared  to  his  friends 
his  calamitous  marriage.  "  There  is  no  great  evil,"  said 
Publius  Syrus,  "  which  does  not  bring  with  it  some  ad- 
vantage." Calamities,  we  know,  have  often  proved  bless- 
ings. There  are  cases  where  blows  on  the  head  have 
benefited  the  brain,  and  produced  extraordinary  changes 
for  the  better.  Mabillon  was  almost  an  idiot  at  the  age 
of  twenty-six.  He  fell  down  a  stone  staircase,  fractured 
his  skull,  and  was  trepanned.  From  that  moment  he  be- 
came a  genius.  Dr.  Prichard  mentioned  a  case  of  three 
brothers,  who  were  all  nearly  idiots.  One  of  them  was 
injured  on  the  head,  and  from  that  time  he  brightened 
up,  and  became  a  successful  barrister.  Wallenstein,  too, 
they  say,  was  a  mere  fool,  till  he  fell  out  of  a  window, 
and  awoke  with  enlarged  capabilities.  Here  is  an  in- 
stance noted  by  Robinson  in  his  Diary:  "After  dinner 
called  on  the  Flaxmans.  Mrs.  Flaxman  —  wife  of  the 
sculptor  —  admitted  me  to  her  room.  She  had  about  a 
fortnight  before  broken  her  leg,  and  sprained  it  besides, 
by  falling  down-stairs.  This  misfortune,  however,  instead 
of  occasioning  a  repetition  of  the  paralytic  stroke  which 
she  had  a  year  ago,  seemed  to  have  improved  her  health. 
She  had  actually  recovered  the  use  of  her  hand  in  some 
degree,  and  her  friends  expect  that  she  will  be  benefited 
by  the  accident." 

There  is  Cowper.  But  for  his  mental  malady  the  world 
would  have  had  much  less  of  good  poetry  and  fewer  per- 
fect letters.     The  thought  of  a  clerkship  in  the  House  of 


MUTATIONS.  227 

Lords  made  him  insane  !  "  Innocent,  pious,  and  confid- 
ing, he  lived  in  perpetual  dread  of  everlasting  punishment : 
he  could  only  see  between  him  and  heaven  a  high  wall 
which  he  despaired  of  ever  being  able  to  scale ;  yet  his 
intellectual  vigor  was  not  subdued  by  affliction.  What  he 
wrote  for  amusement  or  relief  in  the  midst  of  '  supreme 
distress,'  surpasses  the  elaborate  efforts  of  others  made 
under  the  most  favorable  circumstances  ;  and  in  the  very 
winter  of  his  days,  his  fancy  was  as  fresh  and  blooming 
as  in  the  spring  and  morning  of  his  existence."  The  Di- 
verting History  of  John  Gilpin,  the  production  of  a  single 
night,  was,  curious  to  say,  written  by  a  man  who  lived  in 
perpetual  dread  of  eternal  punishment ;  and  while  it  was 
being  read  by  Henderson,  the  actor,  to  large  audiences  in 
London,  "  all  through  Lent,  at  high  prices,"  its  author 
was  raving  mad.  The  ballad,  which  had  become  the  town 
talk,  was  reprinted  from  the  newspaper,  wherein  it  had 
lain  three  years  dormant.  Gilpin,  passing  at  full  stretch 
by  the  Bell  at  Edmonton,  was  to  be  seen  at  all  print-shops. 
One  print-seller  sold  six  thousand.  What  had  succeeded 
so  well  in  London  was  repeated  with  inferior  ability,  but 
with  equal  success,  on  provincial  stages,  and  the  ballad 
became  in  the  highest  degree  popular  before  the  author's 
name  became  known.  The  last  reading  to  which  Cowper 
listened  appears  to  have  been  that  of  his  own  works. 
Beginning  with  the  first  volume,  Mr.  Johnson  went  through 
them,  and  he  listened  to  them  in  silence  till  he  came  to 
John  Gilpin,  which  he  begged  not  to  hear.  It  reminded 
him  of  cheerful  days,  and  of  those  of  whom  he  could  not 
bear  to  think.  "  The  grinners  at  John  Gilpin,"  he  said, 
*  little  dream  what  the  author  sometimes  suffers.  How 
I  hated  myself  yesterday  for  having  ever  wrote  it !  "  Or 
a!s  death-bed,  when  the  clergyman  told  him  to  confide  in 
rhe  love  of  the  Redeemer,  who  desired  to  save  all  men, 
Cowper  gave  a  passionate  cry,  begging  him  not  to  give 
him  such  consolations.     To  our  ignorant  eyes  it  looks 


228  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

Strange  that  the  author  of  our  best  and  most  populai 
hymns  should  have  thought  his  sins  unpardonable ;  should 
have  believed  himself  already  damned. 

One  of  Cowper's  visitors  and  pensioners  at  Olney  was 
a  poor  school-master  (Teedon)  who  thought  himself  spe- 
cially favored  by  Providence,  and  to  whom  Cowper  com- 
municated his  waking  dreams,  and  consulted,  as  a  person 
whom  the  Lord  was  pleased  to  answer  in  prayer.  This 
recalls  a  similar  fact  of  the  illustrious  Tycho  Brahe. 
When  he  lived  in  Uraniberg  he  maintained  an  idiot  of  the 
name  of  Lep,  who  lay  at  his  feet  whenever  he  sat  down 
to  dinner,  and  whom  he  fed  with  his  own  hand.  Per- 
suaded that  his  mind,  when  moved,  was  capable  of  fore- 
telling future  events,  Tycho  carefully  marked  everything 
he  said.  (Striking  instances,  it  may  be  observed,  of  the 
tribute  which  intelligence  and  science  unconsciously  pay 
to  faith.) 

It  is  pathetic  to  think,  says  Alger,  how  many  great  men 
have,  like  Homer  and  Milton,  had  the  windows  of  their 
souls  closed.  Galileo,  in  his  seventy-third  year,  wrote  to 
one  of  his  correspondents,  "  Alas  !  your  dear  friend  has 
become  irreparably  blind.  These  heavens,  this  earth, 
this  universe,  which  by  wonderful  observation  I  had  en- 
larged a  thousand  times  past  the  belief  of  past  ages,  are 
henceforth  shrunk  into  the  narrow  space  which  I  myself 
occupy.  So  it  pleases  God ;  it  shall,  therefore,  please  me 
also."  Handel  passed  the  last  seven  years  of  his  life  in 
total  blindness,  in  the  gloom  of  the  porch  of  death.  How 
he  and  the  spectators  must  have  felt  when  the  great  com- 
poser, in  1753,  stood  pale  and  tremulous,  with  his  sightless 
eyeballs  turned  toward  a  tearful  concourse  of  people, 
while  his  sad  song  from  Samson,  "  Total  eclipse,  no  sun, 
no  moon,"  was  delivered !  Leigh  Hunt  said  of  Handel : 
He  was  the  grandest  composer  that  is  known  to  have  ex- 
isted, wielding,  as  it  were,  the  choirs  of  heaven  and  earth 
together.     Mozart  said  of  him,  that  he  struck  you,  when- 


MUTATIONS.  229 

ever  he  pleased,  with  a  thunderbolt.  His  hallelujahs 
open  the  heavens.  He  utters  the  word  "  wonderful,"  as 
if  all  their  trumpets  spoke  together. 

Beethoven  was  afflicted  with  "  dense  and  incurable 
deafness "  long  before  he  had  composed  his  greatest 
works.  He  said,  "  I  was  nigh  taking  my  life  with  my  own 
hands.  But  art  held  me  back.  I  could  not  leave  the 
world  until  I  had  revealed  what  lay  within  me."  He 
occupied  for  a  long  time  a  room  in  a  remote  house  on  a 
hill,  and  was  called  the  Solitary  of  the  Mountain,  where 
he  heard,  no  doubt,  more  distinctly  "the  voices,"  than  if 
he  had  been  blest  with  the  best  of  ears.  "  When  he  pro- 
duced his  mighty  opera,  Fidelio,  it  failed.  In  vain  he 
again  modeled  and  remodeled  it.  He  went  himself  into 
the  orchestra  and  attempted  to  lead  it ;  and  the  pitiless 
public  of  Vienna  laughed."  His  work  so  far  surpassed 
the  appreciation  of  many  of  his  contemporaries  as  to  be 
condemned  as  the  vagaries  of  a  madman.  Haydn  and 
Mozart,  as  was  said,  had  perfected  instrumental  music  in 
form ;  it  remained  for  deaf  Beethoven  to  touch  it,  so  that 
it  became  a  living  soul. 

It  does  seem  that  God  in  his  mystery  has  sometimes 
put  out  the  eyes  of  poets  and  stopped  the  ears  of  musi- 
cians to  admit  them  to  glimpses  of  his  own  glories  and 
A^hisper  to  them  his  own  harmonies.  Homer  and  Milton 
had  inward  poetic  visions  which  light  and  sight  alone 
.lever  gave  to  man.  Beethoven,  unable  from  defective 
hearing  to  conduct  an  orchestra,  produced  celestial  har- 
monies out  of  the  silence  of  divine  meditation. 

The  philanthropy  of  John  Howard  was  so  prodigious 
that  it  rendered  him  incapable  of  ordinary  enjoyments. 
His  faculties  were  so  absorbed  by  his  great  humanity  that 
he  was  voted  a  bore  by  the  liveliest  and  cleverest  of  his 
contemporaries.  "  But  the  mere  men  of  taste,"  says  John 
Foster,  "ought  to  be  silent  respecting  such  a  man  as 
Howard  ;  he  is  above  their  sphere  of  judgment.     The  in- 


230  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

visible  spirits,  who  fulfill  their  commissions  of  philan- 
thropy among  mortals,  do  not  care  about  pictures,  stat- 
ues, and  public  buildings;  and  no  more  did  he,  when 
the  time  in  which  he  must  have  inspected  and  admired 
them  would  have  been  taken  from  the  work  to  which  he 
had  consecrated  his  life.  The  curiosity  which  he  might- 
feel  was  reduced  to  wait  till  the  hour  should  arrive  when 
its  gratification  should  be  presented  by  conscience,  which 
kept  a  scrupulous  charge  of  all  his  time,  as  the  most  sa- 
cred duty  of  that  hour.  If  he  was  still  at  every  hour, 
when  it  came,  fated  to  feel  the  attractions  of  the  fine  arts 
but  the  second  claim,  they  might  be  sure  of  their  revenge  ; 
for  no  other  man  will  ever  visit  Rome  under  such  a  des- 
potic consciousness  of  duty  as  to  refuse  himself  time  for 
surveying  the  magnificence  of  its  ruins.  Such  a  sin 
against  taste  is  far  beyond  the  reach  of  common  saint- 
ship  to  commit.  It  implied  an  inconceivable  severity-  of 
conviction,  that  he  had  one  thing  to  do,  and  that  he  who 
would  do  some  great  thing  in  this  short  life  must  apply 
himself  to  the  work  with  such  a  concentration  of  his  forces 
as  to  idle  spectators,  who  live  only  to  amuse  themselves, 
looks  like  insanity."  Look  a  little  over  his  wonderful 
life,  by  the  aid  of  a  few  facts  set  down  by  the  encyclo- 
pedist :  At  about  the  age  of  twenty-five  he  experienced  a 
severe  attack  of  illness,  and  upon  his  recovery  testified 
his  gratitude  to  the  woman  who  had  nursed  him,  and 
who  was  nearly  thirty  years  his  senior,  by  marrying  her. 
Moved  by  the  accounts  of  the  horrors  of  the  earthquake 
at  Lisbon,  he  embarked  for  that  place  with  a  view  of  do- 
ing something  to  alleviate  the  calamity.  On  the  voyage 
he  was  taken  prisoner  by  a  French  privateer  and  carried 
into  Brest,  where  he  became  a  witness  of  the  inhuman 
treatment  to  which  prisoners  of  war  were  subjected. 
Designing  to  visit  the  new  lazaretto  of  Marseilles,  he 
endeavored  in  vain  to  procure  a  passport  from  the 
French  government,  which  was  incensed  against  him  for 


MUTATIONS  231 

having  published  a  translation  of  a  suppressed  French 
account  of  the  interior  of  the  Bastile.  He  therefore 
traveled  through  the  country  in  various  disguises,  and 
after  a  series  of  romantic  adventures  and  several  narrow 
escapes  from  the  police,  who  were  constantly  on  his 
track,  succeeded  in  his  purpose.  He  proceeded  thence 
to  Malta,  Zante,  Smyrna,  and  Constantinople,  visiting 
prisons,  pest-houses,  and  hospitals,  and  in  the  two  latter 
cities  gratuitously  dispensing  his  medical  services,  often 
with  great  benefit  to  the  poor.  The  freedom  with  which 
he  exposed  his  person  in  infected  places,  whither  his 
attendants  refused  to  follow  him,  was  characteristic  of 
his  fearless  and  self-sacrificing  character;  but  as  if  by 
a  miracle  he  escaped  all  contagion.  His  most  daring 
act,  however,  has  yet  to  be  recorded.  Feeling  that  he 
could  not  speak  with  authority  on  the  subject  of  pest- 
houses  until  he  had  experienced  the  discipline  of  one, 
he  went  to  Smyrna,  sought  out  a  foul  ship,  and  sailed 
in  her  for  Venice.  After  a  voyage  of  sixty  days,  during 
which  by  his  energy  and  bravery  he  assisted  the  crew 
in  beating  off  an  attack  of  pirates,  he  arrived  at  his  des- 
tination, and  was  subjected  to  a  rigorous  confinement  in 
the  Venetian  lazaretto,  under  which  his  health  suffered 
severely.  In  the  preface  to  one  of  his  numerous  works, 
he  announced  his  intention  to  pursue  his  work,  observing, 
"  Should  it  please  God  to  cut  off  my  life  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  this  design,  let  not  my  conduct  be  imputed  to 
rashness  or  enthusiasm,  but  to  a  serious  conviction  that 
I  am  pursuing  the  path  of  duty."  He  died  of  camp-fever, 
which  he  contracted  from  a  patient  at  Kherson,  Russia, 
on  the  Black  Sea,  having  expended  nearly  the  whole  of 
:  's  large  fortune  in  various  benefactions.  In  a  speech 
to  the  electors  of  Bristol,  Edmund  Burke  thus  eloquently 
sums  up  the  public  services  of  Howard  :  "  He  has  visited 
aU  Europe,  not  to  sur\^ey  the  sumptuousness  of  palaces, 
or  the  stateliness  of  temples ;  not  to  make  accurate  meas- 


232  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

uremer.t  of  the  remains  of  ancient  grandeur,  nor  to  form 
a  scale  of  the  curiosity  of  modern  art ;  not  to  collect 
medals  or  collect  manuscripts ;  but  to  dive  into  the 
depths  of  dungeons  ;  to  plunge  into  the  infections  of  hos- 
pitals ;  to  survey  the  mansions  of  sorrow  and  pain  ;  to 
fake  the  gauge  and  dimensions  of  misery,  depression,  and 
contempt ;  to  remember  the  forgotten,  to  attend  to  the 
neglected,  to  visit  the  forsaken,  and  to  compare  and  col- 
late the  distresses  of  all  men  in  all  countries." 

In  persons  of  genius,  defects  sometimes  appear  to  take 
the  place  of  merits,  and  weaknesses  to  act  the  part  of 
auxiliaries.  The  "  plastic  nature  of  the  versatile  faculty  " 
is  such  that  common  laws  do  not  govern  it,  nor  common 
standards  judge  it.  "  Men  of  genius,"  says  an  acute  his- 
torian and  critic  of  literature  and  literary  men,  "have 
often  resisted  the  indulgence  of  one  talent  to  exercise 
another  with  equal  power ;  some,  who  have  solely  com- 
posed sermons,  could  have  touched  on  the  foibles  of  so- 
ciety with  the  spirit  of  Horace  or  Juvenal ;  Blackstone 
and  Sir  William  Jones  directed  that  genius  to  the  austere 
studies  of  law  and  philology  which  might  have  excelled 
in  the  poetical  and  historical  character.  So  versatile  is 
this  faculty  of  genius,  that  its  possessors  are  sometimes 
uncertain  of  the  manner  in  which  they  shall  treat  their 
subject,  whether  to  be  grave  or  ludicrous.  When  Bre'beuf, 
the  French  translator  of  the  Pharsalia  of  Lucan,  had 
completed  the  first  book  as  it  now  appears,  he  at  the 
same  time  composed  a  burlesque  version,  and  sent  both 
to  the  great  arbiter  of  taste  in  that  day,  to  decide  which 
the  poet  should  continue.  The  decision  proved  to  be 
difficult."  Hence  it  is  that  men  of  genius  and  their  pro- 
ductions are  often  enigmas  to  the  world.  "The  hero," 
says  Carlyle,  "  can  be  poet,  prophet,  king,  priest,  or  what 
you  will,  according  to  the  kind  of  world  he  finds  himself 
born  into.  I  confess  I  have  no  notion  of  a  truly  great 
man  that  could  not  be  all  sorts  of  men.     The  poet  who 


MUTATIONS.  233 

could  merely  sit  on  a  chair,  and  compose  stanzas,  would 
never  make  a  stanza  worth  much.  He  could  not  sing  the 
heroic  warrior,  unless  he  himself  were  at  least  a  heroic 
warrior  too.  I  fancy  there  is  in  him  the  politician,  the 
thinker,  legislator,  philosopher ;  in  one  or  the  other  de- 
gree, he  could  have  been,  he  is,  all  these Shake- 
speare, —  one  knows  not  what  he  could  not  have  made 
in  the  supreme  degree." 

"It  is  notorious,"  says  Macaulay,  "that  N'ccolo  Ma- 
chiavelli,  out  of  whose  surname  they  have  coined  an  epi- 
thet for  a  knave,  and  out  of  his  Christian  name  a  syn- 
onym for  the  devil,  was  through  life  a  zealous  republican. 
In  the  same  year  in  which  he  composed  his  manual  of 
kingcraft,  he  suffered  imprisonment  and  torture  in  the 
cause  of  public  liberty.  It  seems  inconceivable  that  the 
martyr  of  freedom  should  have  designedly  acted  as  the 
apostle  of  tyranny."  The  real  object  and  meaning  of  his 
celebrated  book.  The  Prince,  have  been  subjects  of  dis- 
pute for  centuries.  One  old  critic  says,  "  Machiavel  is  a 
strenuous  defender  of  democracy ;  he  was  born,  educated, 
and  respected  under  that  form  of  government,  and  was  a 
great  enemy  to  tyranny.  Hence  it  is  that  he  does  not  fa- 
vor a  tyrant :  it  is  not  his  design  to  instRict  a  tyrant,  but 
to  detect  his  secret  attempts,  and  expose  him  naked  and 
conspicuous  to  the  poor  people.  Do  we  not  know  there 
have  been  many  princes  such  as  he  describes  ?  Why  are 
such  princes  angry  at  being  immortalized  by  his  means  ? 
This  excellent  author's  design  was,  under  the  show  of 
instructing  the  prince,  to  inform  the  people."  Another 
says,  "  I  must  say  that  Machiavel,  who  passed  everywhere 
fcr  a  teacher  of  tyranny,  detested  it  more  than  any  man 
o!  his  time ;  aF  may  easily  appear  by  the  tenth  chapter 
of  the  first  bool*  of  his  Discourses,  in  which  he  expresses 
himself  very  strongly  against  tyrants."  Nardi,  his  con- 
temporary, calls  his  works  "panegyrics  upon  liberty." 
Bayle  says,   "The  Jesuit  Porsevin,  who  had  not  read  The 


234  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

Prince,  was  nevertheless  the  cause  of  its  being  con- 
demned by  the  Inquisition.  He  charges  Machiavel  with 
such  things  as  are  not  in  The  Prince.  His  charges  were 
made  upon  passages  from  a  work,  published  anonymously, 
entitled  Anti-Machiavel,  and  not  from  The  Prince.  The 
Prince  was  published  about  the  year  1515,  and  dedicated 
to  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  nephew  to  Leo  X.  It  did  not 
prejudice  the  author  with  this  pope,  who  nevertheless 
was  the  first  who  threatened  those  with  excommunication 
that  read  a  prohibited  book  !  " 

A  critic  says  of  La  Rochefoucauld :  "  The  author  of  the 
Maxims  was  apparently  the  least  selfish  public  man  of 
his  land  and  age.  Saith  one  of  his  biographers,  not  un- 
truly, '  He  gave  the  example  of  all  the  virtues  of  which 
he  would  appear  to  contest  the  existence.'  He  ridicules 
bravery  as  a  madness  ;  and  as  Madame  de  Maintenon, 
who  could  have  had  no  predilection  for  his  system,  curtly 
observes,  'he  was,  however,  very  brave.'  The  proofs  of 
his  bravery  do  not  rest  on  Madame  de  Maintenon's  as- 
sertion. A  scorn  of  danger,  preeminently  French,  as  it 
became  the  inheritor  of  so  great  a  French  name  to  ex- 
hibit, was  sufficiently  shown  at  the  siege  of  Bordeaux 
and  the  battle  of  St.  Antoine.  Madame  de  Sdvigne 
speaks  of  La  Rochefoucauld  with  an  admiration  which 
she  rarely  bestows  except  on  her  daughter ;  and  says  that 
n  his  last  agonizing  illness  he  thought  more  of  his  neigh- 
bor than  himself.  Cardinal  de  Retz,  in  the  portrait  he 
has  left  of  the  brilliant  duke,  —  a  portrait  certainly  not 
flattered,  —  tells  us  that  this  philosopher,  who  reduced  all 
human  motives  to  self-interest,  did  not  feel  the  little  in- 
terests which  were  never  his  weak  point,  and  did  not  un- 
lerstand  the  great  interests  which  were  never  his  strong 
point  j  and,  finally,  this  acute  critic  of  contemporaneous 
celebrities,  after  assuring  us  that  La  Rochefoucauld  '  had 
never  been  a  good  party-man,'  tells  us  that  in  the  rela- 
tions of  common  life  La  Rochefoucauld  was  the  honest 
est  man  of  the  age." 


MUTATIONS.  235 

Sir  John  Denham,  according  to  Count  Grammont, 
was  "  one  of  the  brightest  geniuses  England  ever  pro- 
duced for  wit  and  humor,  and  for  brilliancy  of  composi- 
tion ;  satirical  and  free  in  his  poems,  lie  spared  neither 
frigid  writers  nor  jealous  husbands,  nor  even  their  wives ; 
every  part  abounded  with  the  most  poignant  wit,  and 
the  most  entertaining  stories  ;  but  his  most  delicate  and 
spirited  raillerv  turned  generally  against  matrimony  ;  and 
as  if  he  wished  to  confirm,  by  his  own  example,  the  truth 
of  what  he  had  written  in  his  youth,"  he  married,  at  the 
age  of  seventy-nine.  Miss  Brook,  aged  eighteen,  a  favor 
ite  of  King  Charles  II.,  and  mistress  of  his  brother,  the 
Duke  of  York,  afterward  King  James  II.  "As  no  per- 
son entertained  any  doubt  of  his  having  poisoned  her 
(on  account  of  jealousy),  the  populace  of  his  neighbor- 
hood had  a  design  of  tearing  him  in  pieces  as  soon  as  he 
should  come  abroad ;  but  he  shut  himself  up  to  bewail 
her  death,  until  their  fury  was  appeased  by  a  magnificent 
funeral,  at  which  he  distributed  four  times  more  burnt 
wine  than  had  ever  been  drank  at  any  burial  in  England." 

(You  remember  the  plea  Denham  urged  in  behalf  of 
old  George  Wither,  the  Puritan  poet,  when  he  was  taken 
prisoner  by  the  Cavaliers,  and  a  general  disposition  was 
displayed  to  hang  him  at  once.  Sir  John  saved  his  life  by 
saying  to  Charles,  "  I  hope  your  majesty  will  not  hang 
poor  George  Wither,  for  as  long  as  he  lives  it  can't  be 
said  that  I  am  the  worst  poet  in  England.") 

Literature  is  full  of  such  facts  as  at  first  blush  appeal 
incredible.  Consider,  that  "  although  the  soil  of  Sweden 
is  not  rich  in  either  plants  or  insects,  and  many  of  its 
feathered  tribes  are  but  temporary  visitants,,  leaving  it  at 
stated  periods  in  quest  of  milder  climes,  nevertheless  it 
was  amidst  this  physical  barrenness  that  the  taste  of  Lin- 
naeus for  his  favorite  pursuit  broke  out  almost  from  his 
earliest  infancy,  and  found  the  means,  not  only  of  its 
gratification,  but  of  laying  a  basis  of  a  system  which 


236  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

soon  spread  its  dominion  over  the  whole  world  of  science. 
Almost  within  the  Arctic  circle,  this  enthusiast  of  nature 
felt  all  those  inspirations  which  are  generally  supposed 
to  be  the  peculiar  offspring  of  warmer  regions.  He  trav- 
eled over  the  greater  part  of  Lapland,  skirting  the  boun- 
daries of  Norway,  and  returning  to  Upsala  by  the  Gulf 
of  Bothnia,  having  passed  over  an  extent  of  about  four 
thousand  miles.  Nothing  but  the  enthusiasm  of  genius 
would  have  made  him,  night  and  day,  wade  the  cold 
creeks  and  treacherous  bogs,  and  climb  the  bleak  mount- 
ains of  Lapland  —  eating  little  but  fish,  unsalted,  and 
crawling  with  vermin.  He  considered  his  labor  amply  re- 
munerated by  the  information  he  had  gained,  and  the 
discovery  of  new  plants  in  the  higher  mountains,  with 
the  payment  of  his  expenses,  amounting  to  about  ten 
pounds ! " 

And  reflect,  that  "  on  a  bulk,  in  a  cellar,  or  in  a  glass- 
house, among  thieves  and  beggars,  was  to  be  found  the 
author  of  The  Wanderer,  the  man  of  exalted  sentiments, 
extensive  views,  and  curious  observations  ;  the  man  whose 
remarks  on  life  might  have  assisted  the  statesman,  whose 
ideas  of  virtue  might  have  enlightened  the  moralist,  whose 
eloquence  might  have  influenced  senates,  and  whose  deli- 
cacy might  have  polished  courts." 

And  see  what  Bishop  Burnet,  in  his  History  of  his  Own 
Times,  says  of  the  vile  Lord  Rochester :  "  In  the  last 
year  of  his  life  I  was  much  with  him,  and  have  writ  a 
book  of  what  passed  between  him  and  me :  I  do  verily 
believe  he  was  then  so  changed  that  if  he  had  recovered 
he  would  have  made  good  all  his  resolutions."  Of  this 
book,  mentioned  by  the  bishop.  Dr.  Johnson  said,  It  is 
one  "  which  the  critic  ought  to  read  for  its  eloquence,  the 
philosopher  for  its  arguments,  and  the  saint  for  its  piety." 

Soame  Jenyns,  a  friend  of  Johnson  and  Goldsmith  and 
Reynolds,  is  thus  spoken  of  by  Cumberland  :  "  He  came 
into  your  house  at  the  very  moment  you  had  put  upon 


MUTATIONS.  237 

your  card  ;  he  dressed  himself  to  do  your  party  honjr  in 
all  the  colors  of  the  jay ;  his  lace  indeed  had  long  since 
lost  its  lustre,  but  his  coat  had  faithfully  retained  its  cut 
since  the  days  when  gentlemen  wore  embroidered  figured 
velvet,  with  short  sleeves,  boot-cuffs,  and  buckram  skirts ; 
as  nature  had  cast  him  in  the  exact  mould  of  an  ill-made 
pair  of  stiff  stays,  he  followed  her  so  close  in  the  fashion 
of  his  coat  that  it  was  doubted  if  he  did  not  wear  them  • 
because  he  had  a  protuberant  wen  just  under  his  poll,  he 
wore  a  wig,  that  did  not  cover  above  half  his  head.  His 
eyes  were  protruded  like  the  eyes  of  the  lobster,  who 
wears  them  at  the  end  of  his  feelers,  and  yet  there  was 
room  between  one  of  these  and  his  nose  for  another  wen 
that  added  nothing  to  his  beauty ;  yet  I  heard  this  good 
man  very  innocently  remark,  when  Gibbon  published  his 
history,  that  he  wondered  anybody  so  ugly  could  write  a 
book !  " 

It  has  been  remarked  as  an  interesting  fact,  that  Wil- 
berforce  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  and  Wendell  Phillips  at 
the  same  age,  were  the  two  persons  who  seemed  the  least 
likely  of  all  their  respective  contemporaries  to  become 
world-renowned  as  advocates  of  the  cause  of  antislavery. 
Wilberforce  was  returned  to  parliament  at  twenty-one, 
when,  according  to  his  biographer,  "  he  became  the  idol  of 
the  fashionable  world,  dancing  at  Almack's,  and  singing 
before  the  Prince  of  Wales."  At  twenty-five,  he  abandoned 
his  gayeties,  entered  upon  a  new  life,  and  took  up  the  great 
cause  which  he  advocated  during  the  remainder  of  his 
long  career.  Wendell  Phillips,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two, 
was  a  Boston  lawyer,  aristocratic,  wealthy,  handsome,  pol- 
ished, and  sought  after  ;  colonel  of  a  city  militia  company, 
and  a  lover  of  blooded  horses,  of  fencing  and  boxing. 
He  was  born  on  Beacon  Street,  and  his  father  was  one  of 
the  most  popular  mayors  Boston  ever  had.  At  Harvard 
University,  where  he  graduated,  he  was  president  of  the 
«*  pvrliisive  society  "  known  as  the  Gentleman's  Club,  and 


238  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

in  fact  he  was  the  leader  of  the  aristocratic  party  among 
the  students.  At  twenty-five  he  abandoned  his  practice 
of  law,  gave  up  the  fashionable  world,  and  espoused  the 
cause  of  the  slave. 

Robespierre,  anarchist  and  philanthropist,  and  Fred- 
erick of  Prussia,  despot  and  philosopher,  were  both  bitter 
and  vitriolic  natures ;  yet  both,  in  their  youth,  exceeded 
Exeter  Hall  itself  in  their  professions  of  universal  benefi- 
cence. Frederick  indeed  wrote  early  in  life  a  treatise 
called  the  Anti-Machiavel,  which  was,  says  his  biographer^ 
"  an  edifying  homily  against  rapacity,  perfidy,  arbitrary 
government,  unjust  war ;  in  short,  against  almost  every- 
thing for  which  its  author  is  now  remembered  among 
men." 

The  grand  Descartes,  modestest  of  men,  who,  observes 
Bulwer,  wished  to  live  in  a  town  where  he  should  not  be 
known  by  sight,  felt  so  keen  an  anguish  at  the  snubbings 
and  censures  his  writings  procured  him,  that  he  meditated 
the  abandonment  of  philosophy  and  the  abjuration  of  his 
own  injured  identity  by  a  change  of  name.  Happily  for 
mankind,  some  encouraging  praises  came  to  his  ears,  and 
restored  the  equilibrium  of  his  self-esteem,  vanity  (if  all 
pleasure  in  approbation  is  to  be  so  called)  reconciling 
him  once  more  to  the  pursuit  of  wisdom. 

Gray's  diffidence,  or  fastidiousness,  according  to  Hazlitt, 
was  such  as  to  prevent  his  associating  with  his  fellow- 
collegians,  or  mingling  with  the  herd,  till  at  length,  like 
the  owl,  shutting  himself  up  from  society  and  daylight,  he 
was  hunted  and  hooted  at  like  the  owl  whenever  he 
chanced  to  appear,  and  was  even  assailed  and  disturbed 
in  the  haunts  in  which  "  he  held  his  solitary  reign."  He 
was  driven  from  college  to  college,  and  was  subjected  to 
a  persecution  the  more  harassing  to  a  person  of  his  indo- 
lent and  retired  habits.  But  he  only  shrunk  the  more 
within  himself  in  consequence,  read  over  his  favorite 
authors,  corresponded  with  his  distant  friends,  was  terri- 


MUTATIONS.  239 

fied  out  of  his  wits  at  the  bare  idea  of  having  his  portrait 
prefixed  to  his  works,  and  probably  died  from  nervous 
agitation  at  the  publicity  into  which  his  name  had  been 
forced  by  his  learning,  taste,  and  genius.  Such  was  the 
author  of  the  immortal  Elegy,  which  Daniel  Webster  died 
repeating,  and  of  which  Wolfe  said  he  would  rather  be 
the  author  than  be  conqueror  of  Quebec. 

Washington  Irving's  modesty  and  diffidence  did  not 
make  him  shut  "  himself  up  from  society  and  daylight," 
but  it  made  him  a  stranger  to  many  of  his  neighbors,  and 
even  to  the  boys  about  Sunnyside.  It  will  be  a  surprise 
to  many  to  know  that  one  morning  he  was  ordered  out  of 
a  field  he  was  crossing  —  belonging  to  a  neighbor  of  his, 
a  liquor  dealer,  who  threatened,  if  he  found  the  "old  vag- 
abond "  on  his  premises  again,  he  would  set  his  dogs  on 
him!  It  will  also  be  a  surprise  to  know  that  the. dis- 
tinguished author  of  The  Sketch  Book  was  a  confessed 
orchard  thief.  Once,  when  picking  up  an  apple  under  a 
tree  in  his  own  orchard,  he  was  accosted  by  an  urchin  of 
the  neighborhood,  who,  not  recognizing  him  as  the  pro- 
prietor, offered  to  show  him  a  tree  where  he  could  "  get 
better  apples  than  those."  "  But,"  urged  the  boy,  "  we 
must  take  care  that  the  old  man  don't  see  us."  "  I  went 
with  him,"  said  Irving,  "  and  we  stole  a  dozen  of  my  own 
apples !  ' 


IX 

PARADOXES. 

Is  there  anything  more  curious  or  remarkable  in  fiction 
than  the  simple  fact  expressed  by  Thucydides,  that  igno- 
rance is  bold  and  knowledge  reserved  ?  or  that  by  Thomas 
Fuller,  that  learning  has  gained  most  by  those  books  by 
which  the  printers  have  lost  ?  or  that  by  Pascal,  that  it  is 
wonderful  a  thing  so  obvious  as  the  vanity  of  the  world 
is  so  little  known,  and  that  it  is  a  strange  and  surprising 
thing  to  say  that  seeking  its  honors  is  a  folly  ?  or  that  by 
John  Selden,  that  of  all  actions  of  a  man's  life  his  mar- 
riage does  least  concern  other  people,  yet  of  all  actions 
of  his  life  't  is  most  meddled  with  by  other  people  ?  or 
that  by  Goldsmith,  that  the  most  delicate  friendships  are 
always  most  sensible  of  the  slightest  invasion,  and  the 
strongest  jealousy  is  ever  attendant  on  the  warmest  re- 
gard ?  or  that  by  Hazlitt,  that  every  man,  in  his  own 
opinion,  forms  an  exception  to  the  ordinary  rules  of  hu- 
jnanity?  or  that  by  Emerson,  that  the  astonishment  of 
life  is  the  absence  of  any  appearance  of  reconciliation 
between  the  theory  and  practice  of  life  ?  or  that  by  Fos- 
ter, that  millions  of  human  beings  are  at  this  very  hour 
acting  in  violation  of  the  laws  of  goodness,  while  those 
laws  are  clearly  admitted,  not  only  as  impositions  of 
moral  authority  but  as  the  vital  principles  of  their  own 
true  self-interest  ?  or  that  by  Prescott,  that  in  every  coun- 
try the  most  fiendish  passions  of  the  human  heart  are 
those  kindled  in  the  name  of  religion  ?  Strange !  that 
labor  is  so  scarce  in  China  that  vast  tracts  of  land  lie 
waste  because  there  are  no   laborers   to   reclaim   them. 


PARADOXES.  241 

That  in  the  pontifical  army,  not  long  before  Victor  Eman- 
uel, Spain  —  "  the  bones  of  whose  children  for  centuries 
had  whitened  every  battle-field  where  she  found  it  neces- 
sary to  defend  her  religion  "  —  was  represented  by  but 
thirty-eight  soldiers,  while  Holland — "which  protected 
the  Reformation  by  its  Princes  of  Orange,  and  introduced 
liberty  of  religious  opinion  into  the  modern  world"  —  was 
represented   by  hundreds   and   hundreds  of   volunteers. 
That  the  best  building  in  Iceland  is  the  jail  at  Reikiavik, 
which,  during  the  many  years  since  its  erection,  has  never 
contained  a  prisoner.    That  in  the  Arctic  region  a  smaller 
proportion  of  fuel  is  consumed  than  in  any  other  hab- 
itable part  of  the  globe.     That  the  next  use  of  the  May- 
flower, after  carrying  the  Pilgrims,  was  to  transport  a 
cargo  of  slaves  to  the  West  Indies.    That  the  plant  papy- 
rus, which  gave  its  name  to  our  word  paper  —  first  used 
for  writing  between  three  and  four  thousand  years  ago  — • 
of   more  importance  in  history  than  cotton    and    silver 
and  gold  —  once  so  common  in  Egypt  —  has  become  so 
scarce  there  that  Emerson  in  his  late  visit  searched  in 
vain    for   it.      That   house-building,  which   ought   to  be 
among  the  most  perfect  of  the  arts,  after  the  experience 
and  efforts  of  myriads  in  every  generation,  has  produced 
no  stereotyped  models  of  taste  and  convenience.     That 
the  founder  and  editor  of  one  of  the  great  London  peri- 
odicals never  wrote  a  line  for  his  journal ;  and  when  he 
died,  the  review  which  he  had  built  up  by  his  individual 
ability  made  not  the  slightest  mention  of  the  event.    That 
the   three  books  which  have  been   so  widely  read,   and 
which  have  exercised  incalculable  influence  upon  morals 
and  politics,  —  The  Imitation  of  Christ,  The  Whole  Duty 
of  Man,  and  the  Letters  of  Junius,  —  are  of  unknown  or 
disputed  authorship.    That  the  Bible,  —  incomparably  the 
wisest  and  best  book,  the  Book  of  books,  the  guide  of 
life,  the  solace  in  death,  the  way  to  heaven,  —  is  so  little 
read  by  the  many  and  so  little  understood  by  the  few. 
16 


242  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

That  the  one  subject  (religion)  which  is  "  by  general  con- 
sent proscribed  in  general  society  is  that  which  by  gen- 
eral consent  is  allowed  to  be  the  most  important,  and 
which  one  might  therefore  suppose  to  be  the  most  inter- 
esting." That  the  brain,  in  subordination  to  the  mind, 
the  physical  centre  of  all  sensation,  is  insensible  to  the 
wounds  which  are  torture  to  the  skin,  and  which  wounds 
the  brain  alone  enables  us  to  feel.  ("  It  is  as  insensible," 
says  Sir  Charles  Bell,  "  as  the  leather  of  our  shoe,  and 
a  piece  may  be  cut  off  without  interrupting  the  patient  in 
the  sentence  that  he  is  uttering.")  That  the  heart,  to 
which  we  refer  our  joys,  our  sorrows,  and  our  affections, 
when  grasped  with  the  fingers,  gives  no  information  of 
the  fact  to  the  possessor,  unmistakably  responding  at  the 
same  time  to  the  varied  emotions  of  his  mind.  (The  fa- 
mous Dr.  Harvey  examined,  at  the  request  of  Charles  I., 
a  nobleman  of  the  Montgomery  family,  who,  in  conse- 
quence of  an  abscess,  had  a  fistulous  opening  into  the 
chest,  through  which  the  heart  could  be  seen  and  han- 
dled. The  great  physiologist  was  astonished  to  find  it 
insensible.  "I  then  brought  him,"  he  says,  "to  the 
king  that  he  might  behold  and  touch  so  extraordinary  a 
thing,  and  that  he  might  perceive,  as  I  did,  that  when  he 
touched  the  outer  skin,  or  when  he  saw  our  fingers  in  the 
cavity,  this  young  nobleman  knew  not  that  we  touched 
the  heart.")  That  one  of  our  modern  English  poets,  who 
has  written  lyrics  so  passionate  as  to  be  hounded  down 
for  their  immorality,  has  so  lived,  according  to  a  fellow- 
poet,  as  never  to  have  kissed  any  one  but  his  mother. 
That  the  one  man  who  can  read  the  Eliot  Bible  is  getting 
tired  of  his  distinction,  just  as  a  veteran  poet,  it  is  de- 
clared, hated  to  hear  praised  one  of  the  productions  of 
his  youth,  at  eighty  not  having  surpassed,  in  popular  esti- 
mation, a  school-boy  poem,  written  at  eighteen.  That  the 
man  whom  Walter  consulted  in  the  management  of  the 
Times  newspaper,  and  who  in  Walter's  absence,  according 


PARADOXES.  243 

to  Robinson,  decided  in  the  dernier  resort,  was  at  the 
time,  and  until  the  end  of  his  life,  an  inhabitant  of  the 
King's  Bench  Prison,  and  when  he  frequented  Printing 
House  Square  it  was  only  by  virtue  of  a  day  rule.  (Combe 
was  his  name  :  Old  Combe,  as  he  was  familiarly  called. 
He  was  the  author  of  the  famous  Letters  of  a  Noble- 
man to  his  Son,  generally  ascribed  to  Lord  Lyttelton. 
He  was  a  man  of  fortune  when  young,  and  traveled  in 
Europe,  and  even  made  a  journey  with  Sterne.  Walter 
offered  to  release  him  from  prison  by  paying  his  debts. 
This  he  would  not  permit,  as  he  did  not  acknowledge  the 
equity  of  the  claim  for  which  he  suffered  imprisonment. 
He  preferred  living  on  an  allowance  from  Walter,  and 
was,  he  said,  perfectly  happy.)  How  difficult  it  is  to  re- 
alize that  Dr.  Johnson,  the  great  Cham  of  English  litera- 
ture, spent  more  than  one  half  of  his  days  in  penury ; 
that  the  "  moral,  pious  Johnson,"  and  the  "  gay,  dissi- 
pated Beauclerc,"  were  companions  ;  that  they  ever  spent 
a  whole  day  together,  "  half-seas  over,"  strolling  through 
the  markets,  cracking  jokes  with  the  fruit  and  fish  women, 
on  their  way  to  Billingsgate.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that 
that  great  moralist  ever  wandered  whole  nights  through 
the  streets  of  London,  with  the  unfortunate,  gifted  Sav- 
age, too  miserably  poor  to  hire  lodgings.  And  it  is  still 
harder  to  believe  that  the  best  biography  of  that  great 
man,  and  the  best  biography  in  our  language,  was  written 
by  a  gossiping,  literary  bore  —  the  "  bear-leader  to  the 
Ursa  Major,"  as  Irving  calls  him — whom  Johnson  pre- 
tended to  despise,  and  of  whom  he  once  said,  "if  he 
thought  Boswell  intended  to  write  his  (Johnson's)  life 
he  would  take  Boswell's."  We  wonder  that  the  great, 
strong-minded  Luther  ever  flung  an  inkstand  at  the  devil's 
head.  We  cannot  conceive  that  Wesley  and  Johnson 
md  Addison  believed  in  ghosts.  It  looks  strange  to  us 
that  Socrates,  who  taught  the  doctrines  of  the  one  Su- 
premt    Being  and   the  immortality  of   the   soul,  bowed 


244  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

down  to  a  multiplicity  of  idols ;  and  after  he  had  swal- 
lowed the  fatal  hemlock,  directed  the  sacrifice  of  a  cock 
to  -^sculapius.  We  cannot  credit  the  fact  that  Marlbor- 
ough, at  the  moment  he  was  the  terror  of  France  and  the 
glory  of  Germany,  was  held  under  the  finger  of  his  wife  by 
the  meanest  of  passions,  avarice.  We  utterly  refuse  to 
believe  the  complaint  of  Burns,  the  greatest  of  lyric  poets, 
that  he  "could  never  get  the  art  of  commanding  respect." 
It  seems  incredible  that  Goldsmith  ever  "  talked  like  poor 
Poll,"  when  he  "wrote  like  an  angel."  It  appears  strange 
enough  that  Sir  George  Mackenzie  wrote  an  elegant  and 
eloquent  treatise  in  favor  of  solitude,  while  living  a  most 
active  life  ;  and  still  more  strange  that  his  arguments  were 
triumphantly  answered  by  Evelyn,  who  passed  his  days  in 
tranquillity  and  solitude.  We  only  believe  when  we  are 
compelled  by  authority,  that  Tycho  Brahe  changed  color, 
and  his  legs  shook  under  him,  on  meeting  with  a  hare  or 
a  fox.  That  Dr.  Johnson  would  never  enter  a  room  with 
his  left  foot  foremost.  That  Caesar  Augustus  was  almost 
convulsed  by  the  sound  of  thunder,  and  always  wanted  to 
get  into  a  cellar,  or  under-ground,  to  escape  the  dreadful 
noise.  That  Talleyrand  trembled  when  the  word  death 
was  pronounced.  That  Marshal  Saxe  ever  screamed  in 
terror  at  the  sight  of  a  cat.  That  the  smell  of  fish  sent 
Erasmus  into  a  fever.  That  Scaliger  shivered  at  the 
sight  of  water-cress.  That  Boyle  was  convulsed  at  the 
falling  of  water  from  a  tap.  That  Peter  the  Great  could 
never  be  persuaded  to  cross  a  bridge  ;  and  though  he 
tried  to  master  the  terror,  he  failed  to  do  so.  That  By- 
ron would  never  help  any  one  to  salt  at  the  table,  nor  be 
helped  himself.  That  an  air  that  was  beneficial  to  Schiller 
acted  upon  Goethe  like  poison.  ("  I  called  on  him  one 
day,"  said  Goethe  to  Soret,  "  and  as  I  did  not  find  him 
at  home,  and  his  wife  told  me  that  he  would  soon  return, 
I  seated  myself  at  his  work-table  to  note  down  various 
matters.     I   had  not   been   seated  long   before  I  felt  a 


PARADOXES.  245 

Strange  indisposition  steal  over  me,  which  gradually  in- 
creased, until  at  last  I  nearly  fainted.  At  first  I  did  not 
know  to  what  cause  I  should  ascribe  this  wretched  and, 
to  me,  unusual  state,  until  I  discovered  that  a  dreadful 
odor  issued  from  a  drawer  near  me.  When  I  opened  it, 
I  found  to  my  astonishment  that  it  was  full  of  rotten 
apples.  I  immediately  went  to  the  window  and  inhaled 
the  fresh  air,  by  which  I  felt  myself  instantly  restored. 
In  the  meantime  his  wife  had  reentered,  and  told  me  that 
the  drawer  was  always  filled  with  rotten  apples,  because 
the  scent  was  beneficial  to  Schiller,  and  he  could  not  live 
or  work  without  it.")  That  Queen  Elizabeth  issued  proc- 
lamations against  excessive  apparel,  leaving  three  thou- 
sand changes  of  dress  in  the  royal  wardrobe.  That  Bayle, 
the  faithful  compiler  of  impurities,  "  resisted  the  corrup- 
tion of  the  senses  as  much  as  Newton."  That  Smollett, 
who  has  so  grossly  offended  decency  in  his  novels,  had 
an  immaculate  private  character.  That  Cowley,  who 
boasts  with  so  much  gayety  of  the  versatility  of  his  pas- 
sion amongst  so  many  sweethearts,  wanted  the  confidence 
even  to  address  one.  That  Seneca  philosophized  so 
wisely  and  eloquently  upon  the  blessings  of  poverty  and 
moderate  desires,  while  usuriously  lending  his  seven 
millions,  and  writing  his  homilies  on  a  table  of  solid  gold. 
That  Sir  Thomas  More,  who,  in  his  Utopia,  declares  that 
no  man  should  be  punished  for  his  religion,  was  a  fierce 
persecutor,  racking  and  burning  men  at  the  stake  for 
heresy.  That  Young,  the  author  of  the  sombre  Night 
Thoughts,  was  known  as  the  gayest  of  his  circle  of  ac- 
quaintance. That  Moli^re,  the  famous  French  humorist 
and  writer  of  comedies,  bore  himself  with  habitual  seri- 
ousness and  melancholy.  That  he  married  an  actress, 
who  made  him  experience  all  those  bitter  disgusts  and 
embarrassments  which  he  himself  played  off  at  the  thea- 
tre. That  the  cynicism  and  bitterness  exhibited  in  the 
writings  of  Rousseau  were  in  consequence  of  an  unfort- 


246  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

unate  marriage  to  an  ill-bred,  illiterate  woman,  who  ruled 
him  as  with  a  rod  of  iron.     That  Addison's  fine  taste  in 
morals  and  in  life  could  suffer  the  ambition  of  a  courtier 
to  prevail  with  himself  to  seek  a  countess,  who  drove  him 
contemptuously  into    solitude   and   shortened   his    days. 
That  the  impulsive  and  genial  Steele  married  a  cold,  pre- 
cise Miss  Prue,  as  he  called  her,  from  whom  he  never 
parted  without    bickerings.     That  Shenstone,  while  sur- 
rounding himself  with  the  floral  beauties  of  Paradise,  ex- 
citing the  envy  and  admiration  and  imitation  of  persons 
of  taste  throughout  England,  lived  in  utter  wretchedness 
and  misery.     That  Swift,  with  all  his    resources  of   wit 
and  wisdom,  died,  to  use  his  own  language,  "  in  a  rage, 
like  a  poisoned  rat  in  a  hole."     That  the  thoughtful,  cast- 
iron  essays  of  John  Foster  were  originally  written  as  love 
epistles  to  the  lady  who  became  his  wife.     That  the  only 
person  who   could  make  George  Washington  laugh  was 
an  officer  in  the  army  so  obscure  in  rank  and  character 
as  not  to  be  even  mentioned  in  popular  history.     That 
the  man  whom  Daniel  Webster  pronounced  the  best  con- 
versationalist he  ever  knew,  is  now  unknown  or  forgot- 
ten outside  of  his  neighborhood.     That  the  pious  Cow- 
per  attempted  suicide ;   and   had   as   intimate   associate 
the  swearing  Lord  Chancellor  Thurlow,  —  with  whom,  he 
confesses,  he  spent  three  years,  "  giggling  and  making 
giggle."     That  Lord  Chancellor  Eldon,  who,  while  simple 
John  Scott,  son  of  a  Newcastle  coal-fitter,  ran  away  with 
Bessy  Surtees,  daughter  of  a  prosperous  banker  of  the 
same  town,  and  who  was  so  proud  of  the  exploit  that  he 
never  tired  of  referring  to  it,  when  his  eldest  daughter, 
Lady  Elizabeth,  gave  her  hand,  wthout  his  consent,  to  an 
ardent  lover  of  respectable  character  and  good  education, 
but  not  of  much  wealth,  permitted  years  to  roll  away  be- 
fore he  would  forgive  her.     That  not  long  after  the  elope- 
ment referred  to,  while  a  law  student  at  Oxford,  having 
been  appointed  to  read  to  the  class  at  a  small  salary,  the 


PARADOXES.  247 

lectures  of  one  of  the  professors  who  was  then  absent  in 
the  East  Indies,  it  happened  that  the  first  lecture  he  had 
to  read  was  upon  the  statute  (4  &  5  P.  &  M.  c.  8)  "  Of 
young  men  running  away  with  maidens."  ("  Fancy  me," 
he  said,  "reading,  witli  a  hundred  and  forty  boys  and 
young  men  all  giggling.")  That  Lord  Chancellor  Thur- 
low,  who  was  never  married  at  all,  was  so  outraged  at  the 
love  marriage,  against  his  consent,  of  his  third  and  favor- 
ite daughter,  that  though  he  became  reconciled  to  her,  he 
never  would  consent  to  see  her  husband.  That,  accord- 
ing to  John  Lord  Campbell,  so  many  of  'the  most  impor- 
tant points  in  the  law  of  real  property  have  been  settled 
in  suits  upon  the  construction  of  the  wills  of  eminent 
judges.  That  "  the  religious,  the  moral,  the  immaculate  " 
Sir  Matthew  Hale,  when  chief  justice  of  the  king's  bench, 
allowed  the  infamous  Jeffreys,  who  "was  not  redeemed 
from  his  vices  by  one  single  solid  virtue,"  to  gain,  in  the 
opinion  of  Roger  North,  "as  great  an  ascendant  ovei 
him  as  ever  counsel  had  over  a  judge."  That  the  gentle 
Charles  and  Mary  Lamb  were  confined  in  a  mad-house, 
and  that  the  latter  cut  the  throat  of  her  mother  at  the 
dinner-table.  That  Tasso  lamented  the  publication  of 
Jerusalem  Delivered,  and  that  its  publication  was  the  one 
great  cause  of  his  insanity.  That  Thomson,  the  poet  of 
the  Seasons,  composed  so  much  of  his  classic  and  vigor- 
ous verse  in  bed  ;  or  was  seen  in  Lord  Burlington's  gar- 
den, with  his  hands  in  his  waistcoat  pockets,  biting  off  the 
sunny  sides  of  the  peaches.  That  King  Solomon,  who 
wrote  so  wisely  of  training  children,  had  so  wicked  a  son 
as  Rehoboam.  That  the  good  stoic,  Marcus  Aurelius,  of 
proverbial  purity,  had  so  doubtful  a  wife  as  Faustina,  and 
so  vicious  a  son  as  Commodus.  That  that  good  old  Ro- 
man emperor,  whose  Meditations  rank  with  the  best  works 
of  the  greatest  moralists,  breathing  and  inculcating  the 
spirit  of  Christianity,  was  the  bitter  persecutor  of  the  Chris- 
tians in  Gaul.     That  his  graceless  heir,  Commodus,  left 


248  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

the  Christians  wholly  untroubled,  through  the  influence  of 
his  mistress  Marcia.  That  the  English-reading  world  is 
directly  indebted  to  the  Reign  of  Terror  —  the  horrors  of 
Robespierre's  tyranny  —  for  the  most  popular  translation 
of  St.  Pierre's  sweet  story  of  Paul  and  Virginia.  That 
the  author  of  the  Marseillaise  first  heard  of  the  great 
fame  of  his  piece  in  the  mountains  of  Piedmont,  when 
fleeing  from  France  as  a  political  refugee ;  and  upon  the 
return  of  the  Bourbons  to  power  wrote  an  anthem  which 
is  characterized  as  the  most  anti-republican  ever  penned. 
That  that  ode  to  temperance,  The  Old  Oaken  Bucket, 
was  written  by  Woodworth,  a  journeyman  printer,  under 
the  inspiration  of  brandy.  That  so  many  of  the  exquisite 
letters  of  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu  were  destroyed  by 
her  mother,  who  "did  not  approve  that  she  should  dis- 
grace her  family  by  adding  to  it  literary  honors."  That 
the  famous  speech  of  Pitt,  in  reply  to  Waipole's  taunt  of 
being  "  a  young  man,"  was  composed  by  Dr.  Johnson. 
That  Johnson,  looking  at  Dilly's  edition  of  Lord  Chester- 
field's miscellaneous  works,  laughed  and  said,  "  Here  are 
now  two  speeches  ascribed  to  him,  both  of  which  were 
written  by  me  :  and  the  best  of  it  is,  they  have  found  out 
that  one  is  like  Demosthenes,  and  the  other  like  Cicero." 
That  many  of  the  sermons  of  famous  contemporaneous 
clergymen  were  the  productions  of  the  same  laborious 
Grub  Street  drudge,  forty  or  more  of  which  have  been  re- 
claimed and  published,  and  conceded  to  have  been  writ- 
ten by  the  inexhaustible  Johnson.  That  the  only  paper 
of  The  Rambler  which  had  a  prosperous  sale,  and  may  be 
said  to  have  been  popular,  was  one  which  Johnson  did 
not  write — No.  97,  written  by  Richardson.  That  the 
essays  of  The  Rambler,  elaborate  as  they  appear,  were 
written  rapidly,  seldom  undergoing  revision,  whilst  the 
simple  language  of  Rousseau,  which  seems  to  come  flow- 
ing from  the  heart,  was  the  slow  production  of  painful 
toil,  pausing  on  every  word,  and  balancing  every  sentence. 


PARADOXES.  249 

That  Burke's  Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in  France, 
which  has  the  free  and  easy  flow  of  extemporaneous  elo- 
quence, was  polished  with  extraordinary  care,  —  more 
than  a  dozen  proofs  being  worked  off  and  destroyed, 
according  to  Dodsley's  account,  before  he  could  please 
himself.  That  the  winged  passages  in  Curran's  speeches, 
which  seem  born  of  the  moment,  were  the  results  of  pains- 
taking, protracted  labor.  ("  My  dear  fellow,"  said  he  to 
Phillips,  "the  day  of  inspiration  has  gone  by.  Everything 
I  ever  said  which  was  worth  remembering,  my  de  bene 
esses,  my  white  horses,  as  I  call  them,  were  all  carefully 
prepared.")  That  the  Essay  on  Man,  according  to  Lord 
Bathurst,  "was  originally  composed  by  Lord  Bolingbroke, 
in  prose,  and  Pope  did  no  more  than  to  put  it  into  verse." 
That  those  brilliant  wits  and  prolific  dramatists,  Peele, 
Greene,  and  Marlowe,  the  associates  of  Shakespeare,  to 
whom  the  great  dramatist  was  so  much  indebted,  were  all 
wretched  and  unsuccessful,  —  the  first  dying  in  utter  want, 
the  second  of  excessive  pickled  herring,  at  the  point  nearly 
of  starvation,  the  third  being  stabbed  in  the  head  in  a 
drunken  brawl  at  a  tavern  by  his  own  dagger  in  his  own 
hand.  That  Shakespeare  married  at  eighteen,  had  three 
children  at  twenty,  removed  to  London  at  twenty-three, 
begun  writing  plays  at  twenty-seven,  and,  a  little  more 
than  twenty  years  after,  returned  to  his  native  town,  rich 
and  immortal.  That  but  a  few  signatures — dififerentiy 
spelled  —  is  all  of  his  handwriting  that  has  been  preserved. 
That  so  many  critics  should  believe,  and  some  ingenious 
books  have  been  printed  to  prove,  that  the  authorship  of 
the  plays  of  Shakespeare  belongs  to  Bacon  —  the  only 
man  then  living,  they  claim,  who  knew  enough  to  write 
them.  That  the  great  Bacon  was  unable  to  grasp  the 
^eat  discoveries  of  his  time  —  rejecting  the  Copernican 
system  to  the  last,  and  treating  not  only  with  incredulity, 
but  with  the  most  arrogant  contempt,  the  important  dis- 
coveries  of   Gilbert  about  the  magnet.     That  Apuleius, 


250  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

author  of  the  Metamorphosis  of  the  Golden  Ass  (a  para- 
phrase, according  to  Bayle,  of  what  he  had  taken  from 
Lucian,  as  Lucian  had  taken  it  from  Lucius,  one  of  the 
episodes  of  which  —  Psyche — furnished  Molibre  with  mat- 
ter for  one  of  his  dramas,  and  La  Fontaine  materials  for 
a  romance),  who  did  not,  to  use  his  own  language,  "make 
the  least  scruple  of  expending  his  whole  fortune  in  acquir- 
ing what  he  believed  to  be  more  valuable,  a  contempt  of 
it,"  married  a  woman  more  than  twice  his  own  age,  thir- 
teen years  a  widow,  to  procure  for  himself,  as  he  acknowl- 
edged, "  a  large  settlement,  and  an  easy  condition  of  life." 
That  Pythagoras,  the  first  of  the  ancient  sages  who  took 
the  name  of  philosopher;  who  made  himself  so  illustrious 
by  his  learning  and  virtue  ;  who  proved  so  useful  in  reform- 
ing and  instructing  the  world  ;  whose  eloquence  moved 
the  inhabitants  of  a  great  city,  plunged  in  debauchery,  to 
avoid  luxuiy  and  good  cheer,  and  to  live  according  to  the 
rules  of  virtue ;  who  prevailed  upon  the  ladies  to  part 
with  their  fine  clothes,  and  all  their  ornaments,  and  to 
make  a  sacrifice  of  them  to  the  chief  deity  of  the  place ; 
who  engaged  his  disciples  to  practice  the  most  difficult 
things,  making  them  undergo  a  novitiate  of  silence  for  at 
least  two  years,  and  extending  it  to  five  years  for  those 
whom  he  knew  to  be  more  inclined  to  speak,  —  peremp- 
torily ordered  his  disciples  to  abstain  from  eating  beans, 
choosing  himself  rather,  as  some  authorities  have  it,  to  be 
killed  by  those  that  pursued  him,  than  to  make  his  escape 
through  a  field  of  beans,  so  great  was  his  respect  for  or 
abhorrence  of  that  plant.  That  Luther,  the  greatest  of 
the  reformers,  and  Baxter,  the  greatest  of  the  Puritans, 
and  Wesley,  the  greatest  religious  leader  of  the  last 
cent^ary,  believed  in  witchcraft.  That  Dr.  Johnson,  who 
thought  Swift's  reputation  greater  than  he  deserved,  ques- 
tioning his  humor,  and  denying  him  the  authorship  of  the 
Tale  of  a  Tub,  could  take  into  his  confidence,  and  rever- 
ence for  his  piety,  George  Psalmanazar,  who  deceived  the 


PARADOXES.  251 

world  for  some  time  by  pretending  to  be  a  native  of  the 
island  of  Formosa,  to  support  which  he  invented  an  alpha- 
bet and  a  grammar.  ("I  should,"  said  Johnson,  "as 
soon  think  of  contradicting  a  bishop.")  That  Coleridge 
was  able  to  depict  Mont  Blanc  and  the  Vale  of  Chamouni 
at  sunrise  in  such  an  overpowering  manner,  when  he  had 
never  seen  the  Alps ;  while  half-oriental  Malta  and  clas- 
sical Italy,  both  of  which  he  had  seen,  gave  him  no  fruits 
of  poetry.  That  Schiller  wrote  his  William  Tell  without 
ever  seeing  any  of  the  glories  of  Lake  Lucerne.  That 
Scott,  who  told  how  to  see  "  fair  Melrose  aright,"  never 
saw  the  famous  Abbey  by  moonlight.  (Talking  of  Scott 
at  a  dinner-party,  Moore  said,  "  He  was  the  soul  of  hon- 
esty. When  I  was  on  a  visit  to  him,  we  were  coming  up 
from  Kelso  at  sunset,  and  as  there  was  to  be  a  fine  moon,  I 
quoted  to  him  his  own  rule  for  seeing  '  fair  Melrose  aright,' 
and  proposed  to  stay  an  hour  and  enjoy  it.  '  Bah  !  '  said 
Scott,  '  I  never  saw  it  by  moonlight.'  "  "  The  truth  was," 
says  Sir  David  Brewster,  "  Scott  would  not  go  there  for 
fear  of  bogles.")  That  Lalla  Rookh,  rich,  melodious, 
and  glowing  with  a  wealth  of  imagery  which  wearies  by 
its  very  excess,  is  the  production  of  one  who  never  visited 
the  people  or  scenes  he  therein  describes.  (So  true,  nev- 
ertheless, were  its  pictures  of  Eastern  life  that  Colonel 
Wilks,  the  historian  of  British  India,  could  not  believe 
that  Moore  had  never  traveled  in  the  East;  and  the 
compliment  which  Luttrell  paid  him,  when  he  told  him 
that  his  "lays  are  sung  ....  by  moonlight  in  the  Persian 
tongue  along  the  streets  of  Ispahan,"  is  literally  true,  the 
work  having  been  translated  into  Persian,  and  read  with 
avidity  among  many  Oriental  nations.)  That  Kant,  who 
startled  an  Englishman  with  a  description  of  Westminster 
Bridge,  so  minutely  detailed  that  his  listener  in  amaze- 
ment asked  him  how  many  years  he  had  lived  in  Lon- 
don, was  never  out  of  Prussia  —  scarcely  out  of  Konigs- 
berg.     That  Barry  Cornwall,  although  the  author  of  one  of 


252  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

the  most  stirring  and  popular  :!>ea  songs  in  the  language  — > 
The  sea,  the  sea,  the  open  sea !  —  was  very  rarely  upon  the 
tossing  element,  having  a  great  fear  of  being  made  ill  by  it. 
("  1  think  he  told  me,"  said  a  visitor,  "that  he  had  never 
dared  to  cross  the  Channel  even,  and  so  had  never  seen 
Paris.  He  said,  like  many  others,  he  delighted  to  gaze 
upon  the  waters  from  a  safe  place  on  land,  but  had  a 
horror  of  living  on  it  even  for  a  few  hours.  I  recalled  to 
his  recollection  his  own  lines  —  *  I  'm  on  the  sea  !  I  'm  on 
the  sea !  I  am  where  I  would  ever  be  ; '  and  he  shook  his 
head,  and  laughingly  declared  I  must  have  misquoted  his 
words,  or  that  Dibdin  had  written  the  piece  and  put  Barry 
Cornwall's  signature  to  it.")  That  Michelet,  who  wrote 
a  book  on  The  Sea,  had  a  like  horror  of  it.  ("I  love  the 
sea,"  he  said,  "  but  as  in  the  case  of  a  crowd,  I  love  it 
at  a  distance.")  That  Vathek,  that  splendid  Oriental 
tale,  was  written  by  a  young  man  of  twenty-two  who  had 
never  visited  the  countries  whose  manners  he  so  vividly 
described  ;  and  that  of  all  the  glories  and  prodigalities  of 
the  English  Sardanapalus,  his  slender  romance,  the  work 
of  three  days,  is  the  only  durable  memorial.  That  Beck- 
ford's  father,  while  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  became  es- 
pecially famous  for  a  speech  that  was  never  delivered  — 
the  speech  in  reply  to  the  king,  written  after  the  event  by 
Home  Tooke,  and  engraved  on  the  pedestal  of  a  statue 
of  Beckford  erected  in  Guildhall.  That  Michel  Angelo, 
unconsciously,  laid  the  first  stone  of  the  Reformation. 
(History  tells  us  that  Julius  IL  gave  him  an  unlimited 
commission  to  make  a  mausoleum,  in  which  their  mutual 
interests  should  be  combined.  The  artist's  plan  was  a 
parallelogram,  and  the  superstructure  was  to  consist  of 
forty  statues,  many  of  which  were  to  be  colossal,  and 
interspersed  with  ornamental  figures  and  bronze  basso- 
rilievos,  besides  the  necessary  architecture,  with  appro- 
priate decorations  to  unite  the  composition  into  one  stu- 
pendous whole.     To  make  a  fitting  place  for  it,  the  pope 


PARADOXES.  253 

determined  to  rebuld  St,  Peter's  itself ;  and  this  is  the 
origin  of  that  edifice,  which  took  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  to  complete,  and  is  now  the  grandest  display  of 
architectural  splendor  that  ornaments  the  Christian  world. 
To  prosecute  the  undertaking,  money  was  wanted,  and 
indulgences  were  sold  to  supply  the  deficiency  of  the 
treasury ;  and  a  monk  of  Saxony,  opposing  the  authority 
of  the  church,  produced  this  singular  event,  that  whilst 
the  most  splendid  edifice  which  the  world  had  ever  seen 
was  building  for  the  Catholic  faith,  the  religion  to  which 
it  was  consecrated  was  shaken  to  its  foundation.")  That 
the  erection  of  one  of  the  pyramids  has  been  ascribed 
to  a  Pharaonic  princess,  of  great  beauty,  who,  like  As- 
pasia  and  Thargelia,  became  ambitious  in  her  intimacies. 
(The  story  is  that  she  was  one  day  taunted  by  her  father 
with  the  inutility  of  the  admiration  that  she  excited.  Pyr- 
amid-building was  then  the  fashion  in  the  family,  and  she 
vowed  that  she  would  leave  behind  her  a  monument  of 
the  power  of  her  charms  as  durable  as  her  august  rela- 
tions did  of  the  power  of  their  armies.  The  number  of 
her  lovers  was  increased  by  all  those  who  were  content  to 
sacrifice  their  fortunes  for  her  smiles.  The  pyramid  rose 
rapidly ;  with  the  frailty  of  its  foundress,  the  massive 
monument  increased ;  her  lovers  were  ruined,  but  the  fair 
architect  became  immortal,  and  found  celebrity  long  after- 
ward in  Sappho's  song.)  That  Gulliver's  Travels,  the 
severest  lampoon  upon  humanity,  is  the  favorite  fairy  tale 
of  the  nursery.  That  the  distinction  of  the  wreath  of 
poet's  laurel  which  crowned  the  heads  of  Petrarch  and 
Tasso,  in  both  cases  was  obtained  by  inferior  productions  : 
Scipio  Africanus  and  Gerusalemme  Conquistata.  That 
Napoleon,  with  "  a  million  armed  men  under  his  command^ 
and  half  Europe  at  his  feet,  sat  down  in  rage  and  affright 
to  order  Fouchd  to  send  a  little  woman  over  the  frontiers 
lest  she  should  say  something  about  him  for  the  drawing- 
rooms  of  Paris  to  laugh  at."     That  Faraday,  who  at  first 


254  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

begged  for  the  meanest  place  in  a  scientific  workshop,  at 
last  declined  the  highest  honor  which  British  science  was 
capable  of  granting.  That  the  Jews  of  Amsterdam,  exiles 
from  Spain  and  Portugal,  who  owed  their  existence  to 
fiight  from  repeated  persecutions,  persecuted  Spinoza, 
excommunicating  him  with  "the  anathema  wherewith 
Joshua  cursed  Jericho,  with  the  curse  which  Elisha  laid 
upon  the  children,  and  with  all  the  curses  which  are 
written  in  the  law."  That  the  son  of  Charles  Wesley, 
born  and  bred  in  Methodism,  and  bound  to  it  by  all  the 
strongest  ties  of  pride  and  prejudice,  became  a  Papist. 
That  Cowper  was  mad  so  great  a  part  of  his  life,  when 
he  is  the  sanest  of  English  poets  :  of  "  fine  frenzy  "  in  his 
writings  there  is  little  or  none.  That  Burke,  who,  in  his 
youth,  "  wrote  on  the  emotions  produced  by  mountains  and 
cascades  ;  by  the  masterpieces  of  painting  and  sculpture  ; 
by  the  faces  and  necks  of  beautiful  women,  in  the  style  of 
a  parliamentary  report,"  in  his  old  age,  "  discussed  treat- 
ies and  tariffs  in  the  most  fervid  and  brilliant  language  of 
romance."  That  Lord  Brougham,  when  chancellor,  on  the 
bench,  hearing  cases,  wrote  to  Sir  David  Brewster  several 
letters  on  light,  one  of  them  fourteen  pages  long.  That  a 
fourth  part  of  Chalmers's  Astronomical  Discourses,  which 
rivaled  the  Waverley  novels  in  popularity,  were  penned 
in  a  small  pocket-book,  in  a  strange  apartment,  where  he 
was  liable  every  moment  to  interruptions  ;  for  it  was,  we 
are  told,  at  the  manse  of  Balmerino,  disappointed  in  not 
finding  the  minister  at  home,  and  having  a  couple  of 
hours  to  spare  —  and  in  a  drawing-room  at  the  manse  of 
Kilmany,  with  all  the  excitement  of  meeting  for  the  first 
time,  after  a  year's  absence,  many  of  his  former  friends 
and  parishioners  —  that  he  penned  paragraph  after  para- 
graph of  a  composition  which,  as  his  son  in-law  and  biog- 
rapher, Dr.  Hanna,  says,  bears  upon  it  the  aspect  of  high 
and  continuous  elaboration.  That  the  author  of  Aula 
Robin  Gray  kept  the  authorship  of  her  immortal  ballad  a 


PARADOXES.  255 

secret  for  fifty  years.  That  the  title  of  The  Man  of  Feel- 
ing adhered  to  Mackenzie  ever  after  the  publication  of 
that  novel;  the  public  fancying  him  a  pensive,  sentimental 
Harley  whereas  he  was,  according  to  Cockburn,  a  hard- 
headed,  practical  man,  as  full  of  worldly  wisdom  as  most 
of  his  fictitious  characters  are  devoid  of  it.  That  Dryden, 
who  was  personally  more  moral  than  any  of  the  reigning 
wits  at  the  commencement  of  the  Restoration,  was,  in  the 
beginning  of  his  career,  the  most  deliberately  and  unnat- 
urally coarse  as  a  writer  —  absolutely  toiling  and  laboring 
against  the  grain  of  his  genius,  to  be  sufficiently  obscene 
to  please  the  town.  That  three  great  wits  —  Gay,  Pope, 
and  Arbuthnot  —  joined  in  the  production  of  a  play 
which  was  condemned  the  first  night  it  was  acted.  That 
Aberiiethy,  who  was  so  bold  in  the  practice  of  his  profes- 
sion, suffered  for  so  many  years  from  extreme  diffidence 
in  the  lecture-room  —  "  an  unconquerable  shyness,  a  dif- 
ficulty in  commanding  at  pleasure  that  self-possession 
which  was  necessary  to  open  his  lecture ;"  and  that  much 
as  he  sometimes  forgot  the  courtesy  due  to  his  private 
patients,  he  was  never  unkind  to  those  whoin  charity  had 
confided  to  his  care.  (Leaving  home  one  morning  for  the 
hospital  when  some  one  was  desirous  of  detaining  him, 
he  said,  "  Private  patients,  if  they  do  not  like  me,  can  go 
elsewhere  ;  but  the  poor  devils  in  the  hospital  I  am  bound 
to  take  care  of.")  That  Godwin,  who  wrote  against  mat- 
rimony, was  twice  married  ;  and  while  he  scouted  all  com- 
monplace duties,  was  a  good  husband  and  kind  father. 
That  Mrs.  Radcliffe  had  never  been  in  Italy  when  she 
wrote  The  Mysteries  of  Udolpho,  yet  her  paintings  of 
Italian  scenery,  and  of  the  mountains  of  Switzerland,  for 
truth  and  richness  of  coloring,  have  never  been  surpassed 
by  poet  or  painter  —  not  even  by  Byron.  That  Professor 
Wilson,  whose  fame  in  great  part  rests  upon  Noctes  Am- 
brosianffi,  was  indebted  to  Lockhart  for  the  idea,  who 
wrote  the  first  of   those  famous  papers,  and  gave  them 


256  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

their  name.  ("  I  have  known  Lockhart  long,"  said  Wil- 
son to  a  visitor ;  "  we  used  to  sup  together  with  Black- 
wood, and  that  was  the  real  origin  of  the  Noctes.  '  At 
Ambrose's?'  'At  Ambrose's.'  'But  is  there  such  a  tavern 
really  ? '  '  Oh,  certainly.  Anybody  will  show  it  to  you.  It 
is  a  small  house,  kept  in  an  out-of-the-way  corner  of  the 
town,  by  Ambrose,  who  is  an  excellent  fellow  in  his  way, 
and  has  had  a  great  influx  of  custom  in  consequence  of 
his  celebrity  in  the  Noctes.  We  were  there  one  night 
very  late,  and  had  all  been  remarkably  gay  and  agreeable. 
'  What  a  pity,'  said  Lockhart,  '  that  some  short-hand  writer 
had  not  been  here  to  take  down  the  good  things  that 
have  been  said  at  this  supper,'  The  next  day  he  pro- 
duced a  paper  called  Noctes  Ambrosianae,  and  that  was 
the  first  I  continued  them  afterward.")  That  in  Robes- 
pierre's desk,  after  his  death,  were  found  David's  plans 
of  academies  for  infancy  and  asylums  for  age  :  "  being 
just  about  to  inaugurate  the  Reign  of  Love  when  the  con- 
spiracy against  him  swept  him  down  the  closing  abyss  of 
the  Reign  of  Terror."  That  Lamartine,  the  French  orator, 
poet,  and  political  leader,  when  at  the  zenith  of  his  pop- 
ularity, was  rejected  as  a  witness  in  court  where  he  had 
offered  himself,  the  reason  of  the  rejection  being  that  in 
his  youth  he  had  been  convicted  of  a  theft.  That  Mallet, 
although  pensioned  for  the  purpose,  never,  according  to 
Dr.  Johnson,  wrote  a  single  line  of  his  projected  life  of 
Marlborough, —  groping  for  materials,  and  thinking  of  it, 
till  he  exhausted  his  mind.  That  Robert  Morris,  the 
superintendent  of  finance  during  the  American  Revolu- 
tion, who,  on  his  personal  responsibility,  borrowed  large 
sums  of  money  for  the  use  of  the  government,  which,  on 
account  of  the  known  state  of  the  treasury,  could  not 
have  been  procured  in  any  other  way  ;  who  refused  the 
post  of  secretary  of  the  treasury  offered  to  him  by  Wash- 
ington —  naming  Alexander  Hamilton  for  the  station  — 
in  his  old  age,  having  lost  his  fortune,  was  confined  in  a 


PARADOXES.  257 

Philadelphia  prison,  for  debt.  That  in  America,  in  the 
Province  of  Pennsylvania,  it  was  enacted  by  the  Coun- 
cil, William  Penn  presiding,  that  the  laws  should  "  not  be 
printed ;"  and  William  Bradford  was  summoned  before  the 
Governor  and  Council  for  printing  the  Charter  or  Frame 
of  Government  of  the  Province ;  and  Joseph  Growden, 
who  caused  the  printing  of  the  same,  with  some  remarks 
thereon,  was  censured  by  Governor  Blackwell,  "  not  only 
for  that  it  was  false,  but  for  that  the  Proprietor  (William 
Penn)  had  declared  himself  against  the  use  of  the  printing- 
press."  That  Beau  Brummell,  who  was  for  many  years  the 
associate  of  royalty  and  leader  of  fashion  in  England, 
died,  poverty-stricken  and  miserable,  in  a  French  hospital 
for  lunatic  mendicants.  That  the  great  and  good  Dr.  John- 
son, "that  majestic  teacher  of  moral  and  religious  wis- 
dom," when  he  was  in  Edinburgh,  although  personally 
acquainted  with  the  celebrated  Dr.  Robertson,  declined 
going  to  hear  him  preach,  because  he  "  would  not  be  seen 
in  a  Presbyterian  church  ; "  and  upon  being  asked  by 
Boswell  where  John  Knox  was  buried,  burst  out,  "  I  hope 
in  the  highway."  That  Wordsworth  earnestly  defended 
the  Church  Establishment,  saying  he  would  shed  his 
blood  for  it,  when  he  had  confessed  that  he  knew  not 
when  he  had  been  in  a  church  in  his  own  country.  ("  All 
our  ministers,"  he  said,  "  are  so  vile.")  That  the  vanity 
of  Sir  Philip  Francis,  in  the  opinion  of  Moore,  led  him 
to  think  that  it  was  no  great  addition  to  his  fame  to  have 
the  credit  of  Junius,  having  done,  according  to  his  own 
notion,  much  better  things.  ("  This,"  said  the  poet, 
"  gets  over  one  of  the  great  difficulties  in  accounting  for 
the  concealment;  and  it  must  have  been,  at  all  events, 
either  some  very  celebrated  man  who  could  dispense 
with  such  fame,  or  some  very  vain  man  who  thought  he 
could.")  That  August  von  Kotzebue,  "  the  idol  of  the 
mob,"  was  despised  if  not  hated  by  the  great  poets  of  his 
country.  ("  One  of  his  plays,  The  Stranger,"  said  an 
»7 


258  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

eminent  Englishman,  "  I  have  seen  acted  in  German, 
English,  Spanish,  French,  and,  I  believe,  also  in  Ital- 
ian.") That  Lavater,  with  all  his  real  and  pretended 
knowledge  of  human  nature,  was  duped  by  Cagliostro 
That  Hogarth  had  the  impression,  which  his  reputation 
as  a  satirist  could  never  disturb,  that  historical  painting 
was  his  true  vocation.  That  the  mild  Melancthon  ap- 
proved of  the  burning  of  Servetus.  That  Joseph  Scali- 
ger,  who  perfectly  understood  thirteen  languages,  was 
deeply  versed  in  almost  every  branch  of  literature  —  per- 
haps one  of  the  greatest  scholars  that  any  age  has  pro- 
duced  —  found  so  much  perplexity,  not  in  acquiring,  but 
in  communicating  his  knowledge,  that  sometimes,  like 
Nero,  he  wished  he  had  never  known  his  letters.  That 
Chillingworth,  the  constant  study  of  whose  works  was 
recommended  by  Locke,  "  for  attaining  the  way  of  right 
reasoning,"  and  of  whom  it  was  affirmed  that  he  had 
"  such  extraordinary  clear  reason,  that  if  the  great  Turk 
or  devil  could  be  converted,  he  was  able  to  do  it,"  con- 
tracted, according  to  Lord  Clarendon,  "  such  an  irresolu- 
tion and  habit  of  doubting,  that  at  last  he  was  confident 
of  nothing."  That  Gray's  Elegy,  taking  the  author's  own 
word  for  it,  was  not  intended  for  the  public ;  the  poet's 
sole  ambition  being  to  gratify  a  few  of  his  friends  ;  his 
own  family,  even,  were  not  made  a  party  to  his  writings, 
and  his  fond  mother  lived  and  died  in  ignorance  of  his 
immortal  verse.  That  Playfair,  when  racked  on  his 
death-bed  with  pain,  and  a  relation  wishing  to  amuse  him 
by  reading  one  of  Scott's  novels,  of  which  he  was  very 
fond,  dissuaded  it,  saying,  he  would  rather  try  the  Prin- 
cipia.  That  Horace  Walpole,  who  was  greedy  to  excess 
of  praise,  and  keenly  sensitive  to  criticism,  professed  a 
strong  aversion  to  being  considered  a  man  of  letters  ; 
and  that  with  all  his  avowed  contempt  for  literary  fame, 
left  fair  copies  of  his  private  correspondence,  with  copi- 
ous notes,  to  be  published  after  his  decease.     That  Mir- 


PARADOXES.  259 

abeau,  who  came  into  the  world  with  "  a  huge  head,  a 
pair  of  grinders,  one  foot  twisted,  and  tongue-tied,  dis- 
figured when  three  years  old  by  confluent  small-pox," 
called,  as  he  grew  up,  a  "monster,"  a  "disheveled  bully," 
"as  ugly  as  the  nephew  of  Satan,"  turned  out  to  be  the 
Demosthenes  of  France,  and  the  idol  of  beautiful  Parisian 
women.  That  Sanson,  the  hereditary  French  executioner, 
who  officiated  at  the  decapitation  of  Louis  XVI.,  founded, 
before  he  died,  a  perpetual  anniversary  mass  for  the  re- 
pose of  the  monarch's  soul ;  and  wrote  his  Memoirs  in 
the  style  of  a  philanthropist,  whom  fate  had  condemned 
to  officiate  at  the  guillotine.  That  Rousseau,  the  chi  ^f 
article  of  whose  rather  hazy  creed  was  the  duty  of  uni- 
versal philanthropy,  fancied  himself  the  object  of  all 
men's  hatred.  That  Cowper,  who  held  that  the  first  duty 
of  man  was  the  love  of  God,  fancied  himself  the  object 
of  the  irrevocable  hatred  of  his  Creator.  That  the  very 
name  of  the  Cross  was  forbidden  by  the  French  Repub- 
lic at  the  very  time  when  it  had  proclaimed  unbounded 
religious  freedom.  That  the  charge  of  plagiarism  against 
Sterne  rests  in  great  part  upon  his  plagiarizing  an  invec- 
tive against  plagiarism.  That  George  Crabhe  gave  the 
leisure  of  more  than  twenty  of  his  ripest  years  to  writing 
three  novels,  which  he  afterward  burned.  That  Fran- 
9ois  Huber,  who  wrote  the  extraordinary  Treatise  on  the 
Economy  of  Bees,  which  for  general  information  on  the 
subject  has  never  been  superseded,  was  from  the  six- 
teenth year  of  his  age  totally  blind,  —  all  the  curious  re- 
marks and  inferences  involved  in  his  observations  being 
founded  on  fifty  years  of  careful  researches  which  he 
directed  others,  and  particularly  a  favorite  servant,  to 
make.  That  eighteen  years  elapsed  after  the  time  that 
Columbus  conceived  his  enterprise  before  he  was  enabled 
to  carry  it  into  effect,  —  most  of  that  time  being  passed 
in  almost  hopeless  solicitation,  amidst  poverty,  neglect, 
and   taunting   ridicule ;   when  "  Amerigo   Vespucci,  tlie 


26o  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

pickle-dealer  at  Seville,  who  went  out,  in  1499,  ^  subal« 
tern  with  Hojeda,  and  whose  highest  naval  rank  was 
boatswain's  mate  in  an  expedition  that  never  sailed,  man- 
aged in  this  lying  world  to  supplant  Columbus,  and  bap- 
tize half  the  earth  with  his  dishonest  name."  That  Mon- 
taigne, who  considered  cruelty  "  the  extreme  of  all  vices,' 
was  a  friend  of  the  Guises  and  of  the  blood-stained  Mont- 
luc :  he  was  also  for  many  years  a  member  of  a  parlia- 
ment which  had  much  innocent  blood  on  its  head,  and 
always  spoke  with  reverence  and  affection  of  those  who 
carried  out  the  St.  Bartholomew.  That  La  Fontaine,  who 
in  his  Fables  "  makes  animals,  trees,  and  stones  talk," 
was  in  his  conversation  proverbially  dull  and  stupids 
That  Corneille,  whom  La  Bruyere  describes  as  "  plain, 
timorous,  and  tiresome  in  his  conversation,"  "  taking  one 
word  for  another,  and  judging  not  of  the  goodness  of  his 
own  writings  but  by  the  money  they  brought  him,"  in  his 
books  is  "  as  great  as  Augustus,  Pompey,  Nicomedes, 
and  Heraclius ;  he  talks  like  a  king ;  is  a  politician  and 
a  philosopher ;  he  undertakes  to  make  heroes  speak  and 
act ;  he  describes  the  Romans,  and  they  are  greater  and 
more  Romans  in  his  verse  than  in  their  history."  That 
John  Howard,  "  the  philanthropist  "  and  prison  reformer, 
introduced  the  system  of  solitary  confinement,  and  rec- 
ommended its  application  to  refractory  boys.  ("  For 
which,"  said  the  gentle  Charles  Lamb,  "  I  could  spit  on 
his  statue.")  That  Bruce,  the  traveler,  after  all  his  perils 
by  flood  and  by  field,  from  wars,  from  wild  beasts,  from 
deserts,  from  savage  natives,  broke  his  neck  down  his 
own  staircase  at  home,  owing  to  a  slip  of  the  foot,  while 
seeing  some  visitors  out  whom  he  had  been  entertaining. 
That  Diogenes,  who  was  so  fond  of  expressing  his  con- 
tempt for  money,  in  his  younger  days  was  driven  out  of 
the  kingdom  of  Pontus  for  counterfeiting  the  coin.  That 
the  mighty  Dr  Johnson  was  at  times  so  languid  as  not  to 
be  able  to  distinguish  the  hour  upon  the  clock.    That  the 


PARADOXES.  261 

ready  and  voluminous  De  Quincey,  during  the  four  years 
he  was  "under  the  Circean  spells  of  opium,"  seldom 
could  prevail  on  himself  to  write  even  a  letter ;  an  an- 
swer of  a  few  words  to  any  that  he  received  was  the  ut- 
most that  he  could  accomplish  ;  and  that,  often,  not  until 
the  letter  had  lain  weeks,  or  even  months,  on  his  writing- 
desk.  That  out  of  the  name  of  Epicurus  was  coined  a 
synonym  for  indulgence  and  sensuality,  when  that  virtu- 
ous philosopher  "  placed  his  felicity  not  in  the  pleasures 
of  the  body,  but  the  mind,  and  tranquillity  thereof  ; "  who 
"  was  contented  with  bread  and  water ; "  and  when  he 
would  feast  with  Jove,  "  desired  no  other  addition  than  a 
piece  of  Cytheridian  cheese."  That  Phidias  made  his 
sitting  statue  of  Jupiter  so  large  "  that  if  he  had  risen 
up  he  had  borne  up  the  top  of  the  temple."  That  Can- 
ova,  whenever  the  conversation  turned  upon  sculpture, 
exhibited  "  a  freshly-bedaubed  tablet,"  "  with  a  smile  of 
paternal  pride."  That  Goethe  undervalued  himself  as  a 
poet,  claiming  only  superiority  over  his  "  century  "  in 
"  the  difficult  science  of  colors."  That  Jerrold  was  am- 
bitious to  write  a  treatise  on  natural  philosophy.  That 
Paul  Jones,  the  "  hero  of  desperate  sea-fights,"  was 
enamored  of  Thomson's  Seasons.  That  Bonaparte,  who 
"overran  Europe  with  his  armies,"  "recreated  himself 
with  the  wild  rhapsodies  of  Ossian."  That  John  Wesley, 
who  "set  all  in  motion,"  was  himself  (as  described  by 
Robert  Hall)  "  perfectly  calm  and  phlegmatic  "  —  "  the 
quiescence  of  turbulence."  That  Persius,  whose  satires 
are  most  licentious,  sharp,  and  full  of  bitterness,  is  de- 
scribed as  "  very  chaste,  though  a  beautiful  young  man  : 
sober,  as  meek  as  a  lamb,  and  as  modest  as  a  young  vir- 
gin." That  Luis  de  Camoens,  the  greatest  of  the  Portu- 
guese poets,  for  a  long  time  was  supported  by  a  devoted 
Javanese  servant,  Antonio,  who  collected  alms  for  him 
during  the  night,  and  nursed  him  during  the  day.  Thai 
Paulo  Borghese,  pronounced  almost  as  good  a  poet  as 


262  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

Tasso,  was  master  of  fourteen  trades,  and  died  because  he 
could  get  employment  in  none.    That  Bentivoglio,  "  whose 
comedies  will  last  with  the  Italian  language,"  having  dis- 
sipated a  noble  fortune  in  acts  of   charity  and  benevo- 
lence, and  fallen  into  misery  in  his  old  age,  was  refused 
admittance  into  a  hospital  which  he  himself  had  erected. 
That  Demosthenes  "  threw  down  his  arms  when  he  came 
within  sight  of   the  enemy,  and  lost  that   credit  in   the 
camp  which  he  gained  in  the  pulpit."     That  Socrates,  b> 
the  oracle  adjudged  to  be  the  wisest  of  mortals,  "  when 
he  appeared  in  the  attempt  of  some  public  performance 
before  the  people,"  "  faltered   in   the  first  onset ; "  and 
"  did   not  recover   himself,  but  was   hooted  and   hissed 
home    again."     That   Plato,    the   philosopher,    was    "so 
dashed  out  of  countenance  by  an  illiterate  rabble  as  to 
demur,  and  hawk,  and  hesitate,  before  he  could  get  to  the 
end  of   one    short   sentence."     That   Theophrastus  was 
"  such  another  coward,  who,  beginning  to  make  an  ora- 
tion, was  presently  struck  down  with  fear,  as  if  he  had 
seen  some  ghost  or  hobgoblin."     That  Isocrates  was  so 
bashful  and  timorous,  that  though  he  taught  rhetoric,  yet 
he  could  never  have  the  confidence  to  speak  in  public. 
That   Cicero,  that  master  of  Roman  eloquence,  "begun 
his   speeches  with   a   low,  quivering  voice,    just   like    a 
school-boy  afraid  of  not  saying  his  lesson  perfect  enough 
to  escape  whipping."     That  Pope,  who  had  the  courage 
in  his  Dunciad  to  attack  a  whole  generation  of  scholars 
and  wits,  acknowledged  his  inability  to  face  a  half-dozen 
persons  to  make  a  statement  or  relate  an  incident  of  con- 
siderable length.     That  Plutarch,  the   greatest  of   biog- 
raphers, is  without  a  biography,  —  none  of  the  eminent 
Roman  writers  who  were  his  contemporaries  even  men- 
tion his  name.     That  of  Correggio,  who  delineated  the 
features  of  others  so  well,  there  exists  no  authentic  por- 
trait.    That  of  Romanianus,  whom  Augustine  speaks  of 
as  the  greatest  genius  that  ever  lived,  there  is  nothing 


PARADOXES.  263 

known  but  his  name.  That  the  epitaph  of  Gordianus, 
though  written  in  five  languages,  proved  insufficient  to 
save  him  from  oblivion.  That  Domitian,  after  he  had 
possessed  himself  of  the  Roman  Empire,  turned  his  de- 
sires upon  catching  flies.  That  Hazlitt,  "  because  his 
face  was  as  pale  and  clear  as  marble,"  was  "pointed  at  as 
the  '  pimpled  Hazlitt ; '  "  and  "  because  he  never  tasted 
anything  but  water,"  was  "held  up  as  an  habitual  gin- 
drinker  and  a  sot."  That  Robert  Bums  in  early  life  was 
thought  to  be  insensible  to  music.  (Murdock,  the  teacher 
of  Burns  and  his  brother  Gilbert,  says  that  he  "  tried  to 
teach  them  a  little  sacred  music,  but  found  this  impracti- 
cable, there  being  no  music  in  either  of  their  souls.  As 
for  Robert,  his  ear  was  so  completely  dull  that  he  could 
not  distinguish  one  tune  from  another,  and  his  voice  was 
so  untunable  that  he  could  not  frame  a  note,  and  was  left 
behind  by  all  the  boys  and  girls  of  the  school.")  That 
Sir  Isaac  Newton,  though  so  deep  in  algebra  and  flux- 
ions, could  not,  according  to  Spence,  readily  make  up  a 
common  account,  and  whilst  he  was  master  of  the  mint, 
used  to  get  somebody  to  make  up  the  account  for  him. 
That  Socrates,  according  to  Plato,  gave  occasion  of 
laughter,  at  the  expense  of  his  own  reputation,  to  the 
Athenians,  for  having  never  been  able  to  sum  up  the 
votes  of  his  tribe  to  deliver  it  to  the  council.  That 
Prime  Minister  Gladstone,  upon  being  asked  how  he 
employed  his  mind  when  duty  compelled  him  to  sit  on 
the  bench  of  the  ministers  while  a  tory  was  delivering 
himself   of   a  dull  three  hours'  harangue,  made  answer, 

"Last   evening,  when    Mr. was  speaking,  I   turned 

Rock  of  Ages  into  the  Greek,  and  had  half  an  hour  to 
spare."  That  the  great  and  wise  and  pious  Chalmers  so 
far  adopted  and  became  impressed  with  the  views  of  Mal- 
thus  as  to  urge  the  expediency  of  a  restraint  upon  mar- 
riage, and  that  the  same  be  "  inculcated  upon  the  peo- 
ple as  the  very  essence  of  morality  and  religion  by  every 


264  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

pastor  and  instructor  throughout  England."  That  The 
Admirable  Crichton,  master  of  a  dozen  languages,  after 
disputing  for  six  hours  with  eminent  doctors  of  Padua  on 
topics  of  science,  delighting  the  assembly  as  much  by  his 
modesty  as  by  his  wonderful  learning  and  judgment,  at 
the  conclusion,  gave  an  extemporaneous  oration  in  praise 
of  ignorance  with  so  much  ingenuity  that  he  reconciled 
his  audience  to  their  inferiority.  That  the  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough, who,  while  an  ensign  of  guards,  received  from 
the  Duchess  of  Cleveland,  then  favorite  mistress  of 
Charles  II.,  five  thousand  pounds,  with  which  he  bought 
an  annuity  for  his  life  of  five  hundred  pounds,  —  the 
foundation  of  his  subsequent  fortune,  —  afterward,  when 
he  was  famous  as  well  as  rich,  and  the  Duchess  was 
wretched  and  necessitous,  "  refused  the  common  civility 
of  lending  her  twenty  guineas."  That  although  Sir  Isaac 
Newton  was  of  opinion  that  he  "  excelled  particularly  in 
making  verses,"  no  authentic  specimen  of  his  poetry  has 
been  preserved.  That  the  first  public  speech  of  John 
Randolph,  three  hours  in  length,  and  which  established 
his  reputation  as  an  orator,  was  made  in  reply  to  the  last 
ever  delivered  by  the  venerable  Patrick  Henry,  —  the  for- 
mer in  his  twenty-sixth  year,  a  self-announced  candidate 
for  Congress,  and  the  latter  in  his  sixty-third  year,  the 
candidate  of  George  Washington  for  a  place  in  the  Vir- 
ginia legislature.  That  but  a  few  years  after  John  Brown's 
defeat  and  execution  in  Virginia,  Congress  enacted  a  law 
and  the  president  approved  it,  by  which  a  portion  of  the 
Harper's  Ferry  buildings,  including  the  famous  engine- 
house,  so  nobly  defended  by  the  old  hero,  and  to  capture 
which  from  his  little  garrison  Robert  E.  Lee  and  the 
United  States  marines  had  to  be  sent  for,  was  presented 
by  the  government  as  a  free  gift  to  the  Storer  College,  an 
institution  expressly  designed  for  the  education  of  colored 
men.  That  Henry  A.  Wise,  who,  as  governor  of  Virginia, 
hung  John  Brown,  a  few  years  afterward,  fled  Richmond, 


PARADOXES.  26s 

the  capital  of  Virginia,  at  the  head  of  a  Confederate  divis- 
ion of  white  troops,  closely  followed  by  a  division  of  loyal 
black  troops,  singing,  "  John  Brown's  body  lies  moulder- 
ing in  the  grave,  but  his  soul  is  marching  on."  That  a 
daughter  of  John  Brown  taught  a  free  school  of  eman- 
cipated slave  children  in  the  deserted  drawing-room  of 
Henry  A.  Wise.  That  about  the  same  time,  at  Lump- 
kin's Jail,  which  was  the  slave-market,  there  was  estab- 
lished a  theological  seminary  for  colored  young  men. 
That  Richard  Realf,  one  of  John  Brown's  trusted  men, 
was  appointed  assessor  of  internal  revenue  for  the  district 
of  Edgefield,  South  Carolina.  That  the  first  Confederate 
officer  in  South  Carolina  who  officially  met  an  officer  of 
colored  troops  under  a  flag  of  truce  was  Captain  John  C. 
Calhoun.  That  one  of  Jefferson  Davis's  old  slaves  be- 
came a  lessee  of  Jefferson  Davis's  old  plantation.  That 
Foote,  the  celebrated  actor,  died  with  the  dropsy,  never 
in  his  life,  as  he  said,  having  drank  a  drop  of  water. 
That  the  great  Neander,  sometimes  called  the  "  second 
John,"  —  "  the  son  of  thunder  and  the  son  of  love,"  — 
had  his  mind  first  turned  in  the  direction  in  which  he 
afterward  found  truth  and  peace,  by  a  passage  in  Plu- 
tarch's Pedagogue.  That  Plutarch,  who  wrote  so  volumi- 
nously and  excellently  upon  morals,  great  personages, 
and  great  influences,  made  no  mention  in  any  of  his  books 
of  Christ  or  Christianity.  ("  If  we  place  his  birth,"  says 
Archbishop  Trench,  "  at  about  the  year  a.  d.  50,  then 
long  before  he  began  to  write,  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul 
must  have  finished  their  course.  All  around  him  —  at 
Rome,  where  he  dwelt  so  long ;  in  that  Greece  where  the 
best  part  of  his  life  was  spent ;  in  Asia  Minor,  with  which 
Greece  was  in  constant  communication  ;  in  Macedonia 
—  there  were  flourishing  churches.  Christianity  was  ev- 
erywhere in  the  air,  so  that  men  unconsciously  inhaled 
some  of  its  mfluences,  even  where  they  did  not  submit 
themselves  to  its  positive  teaching.     But  for  all  this,  no 


266  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

word,  no  allusion  of  Plutarch's,  testifies  to  his  knowledge 
of  the  existence  of  these  churches,  or  to  the  slightest 
acquaintance  on  his  part  with  the  Christian  books." 
Suetonius,  a  contemporary  of  Plutarch,  calls  the  Chris- 
tians "a  sort  of  people  who  held  a  new  and  impious  super- 
stition." Pliny,  another  contemporary,  pronounces  the 
Christian  religion  "  a  depraved,  wicked,  and  outrageous 
superstition  ; "  Tacitus,  "  a  foreign  and  deadly  supersti- 
tion.") That  John  Stuart  Mill,  who  found  time  and  space 
in  his  autobiography  to  make  careful  lists  of  the  incredi- 
ble number  of  books  he  read  between  the  ages  of  three 
and  fourteen,  to  note  the  languages  and  sciences  he  ac- 
quired in  the  same  time,  as  well  as  his  associations  and 
relations  with  his  father,  his  brothers,  and  his  sisters  ;  who 
accepted  his  wife,  during  her  life-time,  as  his  divinity,  and, 
after  her  death,  confessed  her  memory  to  have  been  his 
religion,  —  omitted  to  say  one  word  about  his  mother. 
That  Jonathan  Edwards,  the  great  theologian  and  thinker, 
—  in  the  opinion  of  Robert  Hall,  "  the  greatest  of  the 
sons  of  men,"  —  never  had  the  degree  of  doctor  of  divin- 
ity or  doctor  of  laws  conferred  on  him,  while  they  were, 
showered  on  scores  of  his  commonplace  contemporaries. 
That  Sir  John  Suckling  and  Richard  Lovelace,  so  famous 
as  courtiers  and  poet  cavaliers,  the  pets  of  the  king  and 
the  people,  the  much  admired  and  adored  by  the  female 
sex,  died  in  wretchedness  and  despair,  —  the  former  tak- 
ing poison,  and  the  latter  dying  in  rags  in  a  miserable 
alley  in  London.  That  Milton,  advanced  in  years,  blind, 
and  in  misfortune,  entered  upon  the  composition  of  his 
.mmortal  epic,  achieving  it  in  six  years.  That  Scott,  also 
advanced  in  years,  his  private  affairs  in  ruin,  undertook 
;o  liquidate,  by  intellectual  labors  alone,  a  debt  of  more 
than  half  a  million  of  dollars,  nearly  accomplishing  it  in 
the  same  time.  That  Dr.  Lardner  published  a  treatise  to 
prove  that  a  steamboat  could  never  cross  the  Atlantic 
(the  steamship  Sirius,  which  crossed  soon  after,  carrying 


PARADOXES.  267 

Dver  his  pamphlet),  and  staked  his  reputation  as  a  man 
of  science  to  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  that 
no  railway  train  could  ever  be  propelled  faster  than  ten 
miles  in  an  hour,  as  the  slightest  curve  would  infallibly 
throw  it  off  the  rails.  That  Babinet,  the  French  calcula- 
tor, also  risked  his  reputation  upon  the  declaration  that 
no  telegram  would  ever  be  transmitted  through  the  Atlan- 
tic to  America.  That  Renous,  a  German  collector  in 
natural  history,  having  left  in  a  house  in  San  Fernan- 
dino^  Chili,  some  caterpillars  under  charge  of  a  girl  to 
feed  that  they  might  turn  into  butterflies,  was  arrested 
upon  returning  to  the  house,  his  extraordinary  conduct 
having  been  rumored  through  the  town  till  it  reached  the 
padres  and  governor,  who  consulted  together  and  deter- 
mined to  punish  the  pernicious  heresy.  That  Socrates 
learned  music,  Cato  the  Greek  language,  Plutarch  Latin, 
and  Dr.  Johnson  Dutch,  after  they  were  seventy  years 
old.  That  Robert  Hall  sought  relief  in  Dante  from  the 
racking  pains  of  spinal  disease  ;  and  Sydney  Smith  re- 
sorted to  the  same  poet  for  comfort  and  solace  in  his  old 
age.  That  De  Foe,  the  author  of  two  hundred  and  ten 
books  and  pamphlets  —  some  of  them  immortal  —  died 
insolvent.  That  Sheridan  got  Woodfall  to  insert  in  his 
paper  a  calumnious  article,  and  neglected  to  answer  it 
afterward,  as  he  intended — expending,  according  to 
Moore,  all  his  activity  in  assisting  the  circulation  of  the 
poison,  and  not  having  industry  enough  left  to  supply 
the  antidote.  That  Hugh  Miller,  who  had  such  healthy 
views  of  life,  as  shown  in  his  autobiography,  voluntarily 
left  it  by  means  of  a  pistol.  That  Lloyd,  one  of  the  early 
friends  and  literary  associates  of  Lamb  and  Coleridge, 
took  lodgings  at  a  working  brazier's  shop  in  Fetter  Lane, 
to  distract  his  mind  from  melancholy  and  postpo;ie  his 
madness.  That  Hazlitt  said  that  Mary  Lamb  was  the 
wisest  and  most  rational  woman  he  had  ever  known. 
That  Professor  Wilson,  soon  after  he  was  selected  to  fill 


268  LIBRARY    NOTES. 

the  moral  philosophy  chair  at  Edinburgh,  and  the  poet 
Campbell,  were  seen  one  morning  leaving  a  tavern  in  that 
city,  both  "  haggard  and  red-eyed,  hoarse  and  exhausted, 
having  sat  t^te-k-t^te  for  twenty-four  hours  discussing 
poetry  and  wine  to  the  top  of  their  bent."  That  Richard 
Baxter,  the  stern  Calvinist,  and  author  of  one  hundred 
and  sixty-eight  works  upon  theology,  wrote  at  the  end  of 
his  long  life,  "  I  now  see  more  good  and  more  evil  in  all 
men  than  heretofore  I  did.  I  see  that  good  men  are  not 
so  good  as  I  once  thought  they  were,  and  I  find  that  few 
are  so  bad  as  either  malicious  enemies  or  censorious  sep- 
arating professors  do  imagine."  That  Theodore  de  Beza, 
the  apostle  of  John  Calvin,  put  to  press  at  the  same  time 
his  coarse  amorous  poems  (Juvenilia)  and  his  intolerant 
apology  for  the  trial  and  execution  of  Servetus.  That 
the  "  mighty  Dr.  Hill,  who  was  not  a  very  delicate  feeder, 
could  not  make  a  dinner  out  of  the  press  till  by  a  happy 
transformation  into  Hannah  Glass  he  turned  himself  into 
a  cook,  and  sold  receipts  for  made  dishes  to  all  the  savory 
readers  in  the  kingdom  —  the  press  then  acknowledging 
him  second  in  favor  only  to  John  Bunyan  ;  his  feasts  kept 
pace  in  sale  with  Nelson's  fasts,  and  when  his  own  name 
was  fairly  written  out  of  credit,  he  wrote  himself  into  im- 
mortality under  an  alias."  That  Madame  de  Montespan, 
who  found  it  for  her  interest  and  vanity  to  live  in  habitual 
violation  of  the  seventh  commandment,  was  so  rigorous  in 
her  devotions  as  to  weigh  her  bread  in  Lent.  That  Car- 
dinal  Bernis,  the  most  worthless  of  abbe's,  who  owed  his 
advancement  in  the  church  to  Madame  de  Pompadour,  the 
most  worthless  of  women,  refused  to  communicate  in  the 
dignity  of  the  purple  virith  a  woman  of  so  unsanctimonious 
a  character.  That  Rousseau,  whose  preaching  made  it 
fashionable  for  women  of  rank  to  nurse  their  own  chil- 
dren, sent  his  own,  as  soon  as  born,  to  the  foundling  hos- 
pital. That  Coleridge  and  Goldsmith  wrote  The  House 
that  Jack  Built  and  Goody  Two  Shoes  :  more  than  all  it 


PARADOXES.  269 

is  curious,  and  wonderful,  that  these  two  simple  trifles 
seem  destined  to  outlive  their  more  elaborate  productions 
—  The  Ancient  Mariner  and  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield 
Christabel  and  The  Deserted  Village  may  hardly  be  pre- 
served amongst  the  curiosities  of  literature,  when  the  fa- 
mous nursery  rhymes  —  joyously  ringing  upon  the  tongues 
of  silver-voiced  children  —  will  be  immortally  fresh  and 
new. 


X. 

CONTRASTS. 

The  world  will  never  be  tired  reading  and  talking  of 
the  peculiarities  and  struggles  of  some  of  its  literary 
worthies,  they  seem  so  incredible.  Poor  Goldsmith,  for 
example  :  every  incident  relating  to  him  is  interesting, 
even  if  colored  by  envy  —  as  most  of  the  contempora- 
neous gossip  about  him  was.  "  I  first  met  Goldsmith," 
says  Cumberland,  "at  the  British  Coffee  House.  He 
dined  with  us  as  a  visitor,  introduced  by  Sir  Joshua  Rey- 
nolds, and  we  held  a  consultation  upon  the  naming  of 
his  comedy,  which  some  of  the  company  had  read,  and 
which  he  detailed  to  the  rest  after  his  manner  with  a 
great   deal   of    good-humor.     Somebody   suggested    She 

Stoops  to  Conquer,  and  that  title  was  agreed  upon 

*  You  and  I,'  said  he,  '  have  very  different  motives  for 
resorting  to  the  stage.  I  write  for  money,  and  care  little 
about  fame.'  ....  The  whole  company  pledged  them- 
selves to  the  support  of  the  poet,  and  faithfully  kept  their 
promise  to  him.  In  fact,  he  needed  all  that  could  be 
done  for  him,  as  Mr.  Colman,  then  manager  of  Covent 
Garden  Theatre,  protested  against  the  comedy,  when  as 
yet  he  had  not  struck  upon  a  name  for  it.  Johnson  at 
length  stood  forth  in  all  his  terror,  as  champion  for  the 
piece,  and  backed  by  us,  his  clients  and  retainers,  de- 
manded a  fair  trial.  Colman  again  protested,  but,  with 
that  salvo  for  his  own  reputation,  liberally  lent  his  stage 
to  one  of  the  most  eccentric  productions  that  ever  found 
its  way  to  it,  and  She  Stoops  to  Conquer  was  put  into 
rehearsal.     We  were   not  over-sanguine  of   success,  but 


CONTRASTS.  27I 

perfectly  determined  to  struggle  hard  for  our  author  ;  we 
accordingly  assembled  our  strength  at  the  Shakespeare 
Tavern  in  a  considerable  body  for  an  early  dinner,  where 
Samuel  Johnson  took  the  chair  at  the  head  of  a  long 
table,  and  was  the  life  and  soul  of  the  corps:  the  poet 
took  post  silently  by  his  side,  with  the  Burkes,  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds,  Fitzherbert,  Caleb  Whitefoord,  and  a  phalanx 
of  North  British  predetermined  applauders,  under  the 
banner  of  Major  Mills,  all  good  men  and  true.  Our 
illustrious  president  was  in  inimitable  glee,  and  poor 
Goldsmith  that  day  took  all  his  raillery  as  patiently  and 
complacently  as  my  friend  Boswell  would  have  done  any 
day  or  every  day  of  his  life.  In  the  meantime,  we  did 
not  forget  our  duty,  and  though  we  had  a  better  comedy 
going,  in  which  Johnson  was  chief  actor,  we  betook  our- 
selves in  good  time  to  our  separate  and  allotted  posts, 
and  waited  the  awful  drawing  up  of  the  curtain.  As  our 
stations  were  preconcerted,  so  were  our  signals  for  plau- 
dits arranged  and  determined  upon  in  a  manner  that 
gave  every  one  his  cue  where  to  look  for  them  and  how  to 
follow  them  up.  We  had  amongst  us  a  very  worthy  and 
sufficient  member,  long  since  lost  to  his  friends  and  the 
world  at  large,  Adam  Drummond,  of  amiable  memory, 
who  was  gifted  by  nature  with  the  most  sonorous,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  the  most  contagious,  laugh  that  ever 
echoed  from  the  human  lungs.  The  neighing  of  the 
norse  of  the  son  of  Hystaspes  was  a  whisper  to  it ;  the 
whole  thunder  of  the  theatre  could  not  drown  it.  This 
kind  and  ingenuous  friend  fairly  forewarned  us  that  he 
knew  no  more  when  to  give  his  fire  than  the  cannon  did 
that  was  planted  on  a  battery.  He  desired,  therefore,  to 
have  a  flapper  at  his  elbow,  and  I  had  the  honor  to  be 
deputed  to  that  office.  I  planted  him  in  an  upper  box, 
pretty  nearly  over  the  stage,  in  full  view  of  the  pit  and 
galleries,  and  perfectly  well  situated  to  give  the  echo  all 
'is  play  through  the  hollows  and  recesses  of  the  theatre 


272  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

The  success  of  our  manoeuvres  was  complete.  All  eyes 
were  upon  Johnson,  who  sat  in  a  front  row  of  a  side 
box,  and  when  he  laughed  everybody  thought  themselves 
warranted  to  roar.  In  the  meantime,  my  friend  followed 
signals  with  a  rattle  so  irresistibly  comic  that^when  he 
had  repeated  it  several  times,  the  attention  of  the  specta- 
tors was  so  engrossed  by  his  person  and  performances 
that  the  progress  of  the  play  seemed  likely  to  become  a 
secondary  object,  and  I  found  it  prudent  to  insinuate  o 
him  that  he  might  halt  his  music  without  any  prejudice 
to  the  author ;  but,  alas,  it  was  now  too  late  to  rein  him 
in  ;  he  had  laughed  upon  my  signal  where  he  found  no 
joke,  and  now  unluckily  he  fancied  that  he  found  a  joke 
in  almost  everything  that  was  said  ;  so  that  nothing  in 
nature  could  be  more  malapropos  than  some  of  his  bursts 
every  now  and  then  were.  These  were  dangerous  mo- 
ments, for  the  pit  began  to  take  umbrage  ;  but  we  carried 
our  play  through,  and  triumphed,  not  only  over  Colman's 
judgment,  but  our  own."  It  is  related  that  Goldsmith, 
during  the  performance  of  the  comedy,  walked  all  the 
time  in  St.  James's  Park,  in  great  uneasiness  ;  and  when 
he  thought  it  must  be  over,  he  hastened  to  the  theatre. 
His  ears  were  assailed  with  hisses  as  he  entered  the 
green-room,  when  he  eagerly  inquired  of  Mr.  Colman  the 
cause.  "  Pshaw !  Pshaw !  "  said  Colman,  "  don't  be  afraid 
of  squibs,  when  we  have  been  sitting  on  a  barrel  of  gun- 
powder these  two  hours."  The  fact  was,  that  the  comedy 
had  been  completely  successful,  and  that  it  was  the  farce 
which  had  excited  those  sounds  so  terrific  to  Goldsmith. 

A  scene  very  different  from  that  occurred  at  another 
"  first  acting  "  —  as  remarkable  if  not  as  famous.  It  was 
on  the  occasion  of  the  first  presentation  of  Lamb's  farce 
of  Mr.  H.,  thirty  years  later,  at  Drury  Lane.  That  acute 
dramatic  scholar  and  critic  had  written  a  tragedy,  —  John 
Woodvil,  —  the  fate  of  which  his  friend  Procter  has  pleas- 
antly narrated  :    "  It  had  been  in  Mr.  Kemble's  hands  I'oi 


CONTRASTS.  2/3 

about  a  year,  and  Lamb  naturally  became  urgent  to  hear 
his  decision  upon  it.  Upon  applying  for  this  he  found 
that  his  play  was — lost!  This  was  at  once  acknowl- 
edged, and  a  'courteous  request  made  for  another  copy, 
if  I  had  one  by  me.'  Luckily,  another  copy  existed.  The 
'  first  runnings '  of  a  genius  were  not,  therefore,  altogether 
lost,  by  having  been  cast,  without  a  care,  into  the  dusty 
limbo  of  the  theatre.  The  other  copy  was  at  once  sup- 
plied, and  the  play  very  speedily  rejected.  It  was  after- 
ward facetiously  brought  forward  in  one  of  the  early 
numbers  of  the  Edinburgh  Review,  and  there  noticed  as 
a  rude  specimen  of  the  earliest  age  of  the  drama,  '  older 
than  .^schylus.'  "  But  the  condemnation  of  his  tragedy 
did  not  discourage  him  ;  he  now  tried  his  genius  upon  a 
farce.  Its  acceptance,  Talfourd  says,  gave  Lamb  some  of 
the  happiest  moments  he  ever  spent.  He  wrote  joyously 
to  Wordsworth  about  it,  even  carrying  his  humorous  antic- 
ipations so  far  as  to  indulge  in  a  draft  of  the  "  orders  " 
he  should  send  out  to  his  friends  after  it  had  had  a  suc- 
cessful run  :  "  Admit  to  Boxes.  Mr.  H.  Ninth  Night. 
Charles  Lamb."  Hear  what  he  says  about  it  to  his  friend 
Manning,  then  in  China  :  "  The  title  is  Mr.  H.,  no  more  ; 
how  simple,  how  taking !  A  great  H —  sprawling  over 
the  play-bill,  and  attracting  eyes  at  every  corner.  The 
story  is  a  coxcom43  appearing  at  Bath,  vastly  rich  —  all 
the  ladies  dying  for  him  —  all  bursting  to  know  who  he  is 
• —  but  he  goes  by  no  other  name  than  Mr.  H. ;  a  curiosity 
like  that  of  the  dames  of  Strasburg  about  the  man  with 
the  great  nose.  But  I  won't  tell  you  any  more  about  it. 
Yes,  I  will ;  but  I  can't  give  you  any  idea  how  I  have 
done  it.  I  '11  just  tell  you  that  after  much  vehement  ad- 
miration, when  his  true  name  comes  out,  —  '  Hogsflesh,' 
—  all  the  women  shun  him,  avoid  him,  and  not  one  can 
be  found  to  change  her  name  for  him  —  that 's  the  idea  : 
how  flat  it  is  here,  but  how  whimsical  in  the  farce  !  And 
only  think  how  hard  upon  me  it  is  that  the  ship  is  dis- 
i8 


274  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

patched  to-morrow,  and  my  triumph  cannot  be  ascertained 
till  the  Wednesday  after ;  but  all  China  will  ring  of  it  by 

and  by I  shall  get  two  hundred  pounds  from  the 

theatre  if  Mr.  H.  has  a  good  run,  and  I  hope  one  hun- 
dred pounds  for  the  copyright Mary  and  I  are  to 

sit  next  the  orchestra  in  the  pit,  next  the  dweedle  dees." 
The  Wednesday  came,  the  wished-for  evening,  which  de- 
cided the  fate  of  Mr.  H.     "  Great  curiosity,"  says  Tal- 
fourd,    "was  excited   by  the  announcement;   the   house 
was  crowded  to  the  ceiling,  and  the  audience  impatiently 
awaited  the  conclusion  of  the  long  intolerable  opera  by 
which  it  was  preceded.    At  length  the  hero  of  the  farce  en- 
tered, gayly  dressed,  and  in  happiest  spirits,  —  enough,  not 
too  much,  elated,  —  and  delivered  the  prologue  with  great 
vivacity  and  success.     The  farce  began  ;  at  first  it  was 
much  applauded ;   but  the  wit  seemed  wire-drawn ;   and 
when  the  curtain  fell  on  the  first  act,  the  friends  of  the 
author  began  to  fear.    The  second  act  dragged  heavily  on, 
as  second  acts  of  farces  will  do ;  a  rout  at  Bath,  peopled 
with  ill-dressed  and  over-dressed  actors  and  actresses,  in- 
creased the  disposition  to  yawn  ;  and  when  the  moment 
of  disclosure  came,  and   nothing  worse   than  the  name 
Hogsflesh  was  heard,  the  audience  resented  the  long  play 
on  their  curiosity,  and  would  hear  no  more.      Lamb,  with 
his  sister,  sat,  as  he  anticipated,  in  the  front  of  the  pit ; 
and  having  joined  in  encoring  the  epilogue,  the  brilliancy 
of  which  injured  the  farce,  he  gave  way  with  equal  pliancy 
to  the  common  feeling,  and  hissed  and  hooted  as  loudly 
as  any  of  his  neighbors  !  "     Away  went  the  poet's  fame, 
and  the  hoped-for  three  hundred  pounds  !     Not  even  the 
autocratic  countenance  of  Johnson,  and  the  big,  conta- 
gious laugh  of  Drummond,  could  have  saved  them.     The 
next  morning's  play-bill  contained  a  veracious  announce 
ment,  that  "  the  new  farce  of  Mr.  H.,  performed  for  the 
first  time  last  night,  was  received  by  an  ov^erflowing  audi- 
ence with  universal  applause,  and  will  be  repeated  for  the 


CONTRASTS.  2/5 

second  time  to-morrow ; "  but  the  stage  lamps  never  that 
morrow  saw  !  An  amusing,  sad  spectacle  the  whole  thing 
was  ;  Lamb,  especially,  —  the  dramatic  scholar,  critic,  and 
wit,  the  theatre-goer,  the  associate  of  playwrights  and  ac- 
tors,—  hissing  and  hooting  his  own  bantling  !  In  a  letter 
afterward  to  Manning,  he  labors  to  be  amusing  over  the 
catastrophe  in  this  ghastly  and  extravagant  manner:  "So 
I  go  creeping  on  since  I  was  lamed  by  that  cursed  fall 
from  off  the  top  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre  into  the  pit, 
something  more  than  a  year  ago.  However,  I  have  been 
free  of  the  house  ever  since,  and  the  house  was  pretty 
free  with  me  upon  that  occasion.  Hang  'em,  how  they 
hissed  !  It  was  not  a  hiss  neither,  but  a  sort  of  a  frantic 
yell,  like  a  congregation  of  mad  geese  ;  with  roaring  some- 
times like  bears  ;  mows  and  mops  like  apes ;  sometimes 
snakes,  that  hissed  me  into  madness.  'T  was  like  St. 
Anthony's  temptations.  Mercy  on  us  !  that  God  should 
give  his  favorite  children,  men,  mouths  to  speak  with,  to 
discourse  rationally,  to  promise  smoothly,  to  flatter  agree- 
ably, to  encourage  warmly,  to  counsel  wisely,  to  sing  with, 
to  drink  with,  and  to  kiss  with,  and  that  they  should  turn 
them  into  mouths  of  adders,  bears,  wolves,  hyenas,  and 
whistle  like  tempests,  and  emit  breath  through  them  like 
distillations  of  aspic  poison,  to  asperse  and  vilify  the  in- 
nocent labors  of  their  fellow-creatures  who  are  desirous 
to  please  them  !  Heaven  be  pleased  to  make  the  teeth 
rot  out  of  them  all,  therefore !  Make  them  a  reproach, 
and  ail  that  pass  by  them  to  loll  out  their  tongues  at 
them  !  Blind  mouths  !  as  Milton  somewhere  calls  them." 
Poor  Elia  !  Of  crazy  stock ;  himself  in  a  mad-house 
for  six  weeks  at  the  end  of  his  twentieth  year ;  his  sister 
insane  at  intervals  throughout  her  life  ;  his  mother  hope- 
lessly bed-ridden  till  killed  by  her  daughter  in  a  fit  of 
frenzy  ;  his  father  pitifully  imbecile ;  his  old  maiden  aunt 
home  from  a  rich  relation's  to  be  nursed  till  she  died  — 
all  dependent  upon  him,  his  more  prosperous  brother  de- 


276  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

dining  to  bear  any  part  of  the  burden ;  his  work  for  more 
than  thirty  years  monotonous,  and  most  of  it  performed 
at  the  same  desk  in  the  same  back  office;  pinched  all  the 
time  by  adversity  ;  with  no  ear  for  music ;  the  list  of  his 
few  friends,  to  use  his  own  words,  "  in  the  world's  eye,  a 
ragged  regiment,"  —  including  the  poet  Lloyd,  who  died 
insane,  and  the  scholar  Dyer,  who  was  so  absent-minded 
25  at  one  time  to  empty  the  contents  of  his  snuff-box  into 
the  tea-pot  when  he  was  preparing  breakfast  for  a  hungry 
friend,  at  another,  with  staff  in  hand,  and  at  noonday, 
to  walk  straight  into  the  river,  —  the  humor,  we  say,  of 
dear,  wretched,  gentle  Charles  Lamb  must  stand  a  won- 
der in  English  literature. 

Not  less  incredible  was  the  steady  growth  of  the  pro- 
digious genius  of  Charlotte  Bronte,  under  circumstances 
hardly  less  awfully  depressing.  Think  of  the  woful  life 
of  that  suffering  prodigy,  in  that  cheerless  village  of  for- 
bidding stone  houses,  whose  grim  architecture  illustrated 
the  rigid  hardness  of  their  inhabitants.  Above,  below, 
all  around,  were  rocks  and  moors,  "  where  neither  flowers 
nor  vegetables  would  flourish,  and  where  even  a  tree  of 
moderate  dimensions  might  be  hunted  far  and  wide  j 
where  the  snow  lay  long  and  late  ;  and  where  often,  on 
autumnal  and  winter  nights,  the  four  winds  of  heaven 
seemed  to  meet  and  rage  together,  tearing  round  the 
houses  as  if  they  were  wild  beasts  striving  to  find  an  en- 
trance." Stone  dikes  were  used  in  place  of  hedges.  The 
cold  parsonage,  at  the  top  of  the  one  desolate  street,  with 
its  stone  stairs  and  stone  floors  in  the  passages  and  par- 
lors, was  surrounded  on  three  sides  by  the  "  great  old 
church-yard,"  which  was  "  terribly  full  of  upright  tomb- 
stones," and  which  poisoned  the  water-springs  of  the 
pumps.  The  funeral  bells,  tolling,  tolling,  and  the  "  chip, 
chip  "  of  the  mason,  as  he  cut  the  grave-stones  in  a  shed 
jlose  by,  were  habitual  sounds.  The  pews  in  the  old 
church  were  of  black  oak,  with  high  divisions,  with  the 


CONTRASTS.  2/7 

names  of  the  owners  painted  in  white  letters  on  the 
doors.  Her  father,  the  clergyman,  harsh,  hard,  and  un- 
social ;  at  all  times  denying  flesh  food  to  his  puny  chil- 
dren ;  at  dinner  permitting  them  only  potatoes,  and  rarely 
or  never  taking  his  meals  with  them ;  with  a  temper  so 
violent  and  distrustful  as  to  cause  him  always  to  carry  a 
pistol  which  he  was  in  the  habit  of  discharging  from  an 
upper  window  whenever  in  a  fit  of  passion  ;  who  burned 
the  little  colored  shoes  of  his  children,  presented  by  their 
mother's  cousin,  lest  they  should  foster  a  love  of  dress  ; 
who  cut  in  strips  the  silk  gown  of  his  wife  because  its 
color  was  not  suited  to  his  puritanical  taste  —  at  the 
time,  too,  when  she  was  slowly  dying  of  an  internal  can- 
cer. Sent  from  home  to  be  educated  at  a  miserable 
school  provided  for  the  daughters  of  clerg}'men,  where 
were  bad  air  and  bad  food,  and  which  caused  the  speedy 
death  of  both  her  elder  sisters.  So  short-sighted  that 
"she  always  seemed  to  be  seeking  something,  moving 
her  head  from  side  to  side  to  catch  a  sight  of  it."  Hav- 
ing no  visitors  ;  visiting,  during  her  childhood,  but  at  one 
house,  and  that  for  but  a  short  time.  Her  only  intimate 
associates  her  two  younger  sisters.  Wonderful  trio  ! 
"  At  nine  o'clock  they  put  away  their  work,  and  began  to 
pace  the  room  backward  and  forward,  up  and  down,  over 
the  stone  floors,  —  as  often  with  the  candles  extinguished, 
for  economy's  sake,  as  not,  —  their  figures  glancing  in 
the  firelight,  and  out  into  the  shadow,  perpetually.  At 
this  time  they  talked  over  past  cares  and  troubles ;  they 
planned  for  the  future,  and  consulted  each  other  as  to 
their  plans.  In  after  years,  this  was  the  time  for  discus- 
sing together  the  plots  of  their  novels.  Ai'd  again,  still 
later,  this  was  the  time  for  the  last  surviving  sister  (Char- 
lotte) to  walk  alone,  from  old  accustomed  habit,  round 
and  round  the  desolate  room,  thinking  sadly  upon  the 
Mays  that  were  no  more,'"  Is  there  anything  in  books 
more  sad  and  touching  ?     Her  only  pet  was  a  fierce  bull- 


278  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

dog,  and  her  only  male  associate  her  brilliant,  drunken 
brother  (who  willfully  died  upon  his  feet,  in  an  upright 
position,  to  fulfill  an  oft-declared  purpose),  a  continual 
disgrace  and  terror  as  long  as  he  lived.  And  much  of 
the  time,  poor  thing,  in  an  agony  about  the  fate  of  her 
soul !  How  the  little,  pinched  victim  of  all  this  misery 
and  wretchedness  could  have  written  a  narrative  which  at 
once  took  its  place,  in  spite  of  faithless  and  unsympathiz- 
ing  critics,  and  securely  kept  it,  too,  amongst  the  highest 
and  best  productions  of  the  age,  is  a  startling  marvel  in 
literature.  Out  of  her  own  life  she  wrought  her  wonder- 
ful works.  "  The  fiery  imagination  that  at  times  eats  me 
up,"  she  wrote  to  her  friend.  In  her  stories  she  but  told 
her  own  agonies,  as  Cowper  noted  the  progress  of  his  in- 
sanity, and  the  French  physiologist  his  ebbing  pulse  under 
the  deadly  influence  of  burning  charcoal. 

But,  recurring  to  Lamb  and  his  set,  what  impossible, 
incomprehensible  characters  it  included:  Elton  Ham- 
mond, for  instance,  a  contemporary  if  not  an  associate. 
He  inherited  his  father's  tea  business  in  Milk  Street. 
In  order,  he  said,  to  set  an  example  to  the  world  'how  a 
business  should  be  carried  on,  and  that  he  might  not  be 
Interfered  with  in  his  plans,  he  turned  off  the  clerks  and 
every  servant  in  the  establishment,  which  soon  wound  up 
the  business  altogether.  For  a  while  he  had  no  other 
society  than  a  little  child,  which  he  taught  its  letters,  and 
a  mouse,  that  fed  out  of  his  hands.  He  journalized  his 
food,  his  sleep,  his  dreams.  He  had  a  conviction  that 
he  was  to  have  been,  and  ought  to  have  been,  the  great- 
est of  men,  but  was  conscious  in  fact  that  he  was  not. 
The  reason  assigned  by  him  for  putting  an  end  to  his  life 
was  that  he  could  not  condescend  to  live  without  fulfill- 
ing his  proper  vocation.  He  said  to  one  of  his  friends 
that  he  was  on  the  point  of  making  a  discovery  which 
would  put  an  end  to  physical  and  moral  evil  in  the  world. 
ye  quarreled  with  another  of  his  friends  for  not  being 


CONTRASTS.  2/9 

willing  to  join  him  in  carrying  a  heavy  box  through  the 
streets  of  London  for  a  poor  woman.  He  refused  a  pri- 
vate secretaryship  to  Rough,  a  colonial  chief  justice,  on 
the  ground  of  the  obligation  involved  to  tell  a  lie  and 
write  a  lie  every  day,  subscribing  himself  the  humble  ser- 
vant of  people  he  did  not  serve,  and  toward  whom  he  felt 
no  humility.  Here  are  a  few  things  he  wrote  :  "  When  I 
was  about  eight  or  ten  I  promised  marriage  to  a  wrinkled 
cook  we  had,  aged  about  sixty-five.  I  was  convinced  of 
the  insignificance  of  beauty,  but  really  felt  some  consider- 
able ease  at  hearing  of  her  death,  about  four  years  after, 
when  I  began  to  repent  of  my  vow."  .  ..."  I  always  said 
that  I  would  do  anything  to  make  another  happy,  and  told 
a  boy  I  would  give  him  a  shilling  if  it  would  make  him 
happy  ;  he  said  it  would,  so  I  gave  it  to  him.  It  is  not 
to  be  wondered  at  that  I  had  plenty  of  such  applications, 
and  soon  emptied  my  purse.  It  is  true  I  rather  grudged 
the  money,  because  the  boys  laughed  rather  more  than  I 
wished  them.  But  it  would  have  been  inconsistent  to 
have  appeared  dissatisfied.  Some  of  them  were  generous 
enough  to  return  the  money,  and  I  was  prudent  enough 
to  take  it,  though  I  declared  that  if  it  would  make  them 
happy  I  should  be  sorry  to  have  it  back."  .  ..."  It  is 
not  pain,  it  is  not  death,  that  I  dread,  it  is  the  hatred  of 
a  man  ;  there  is  something  in  it  so  shocking  that  I  would 
rather  submit  to  any  injury  than  incur  or  increase  the 
hatred  of  a  man  by  revenging  it."  .  .  .  .  "  The  chief 
philosophical  value  of  my  papers  I  conceive  to  be  that 
they  record  something  of  a  mind  that  was  very  near  taking 
a  station  far  above  all  that  have  hitherto  appeared  in  the 
world."  .  ..."  It  is  provoking  that  the  secret  of  render- 
ing man  perfect  in  wisdom,  power,  virtue,  and  happinCbS, 
should  die  with  me.  I  never  till  this  moment  doubted 
that  some  other  person  would  discover  it ;  but  I  now 
recollect  that  when  I  have  relied  on  others  I  have  always 
been  disappointed.     Perhaps  none  may  ever  discover  it, 


28o  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

and  the  human  race  has  lost  its  only  chance  of  eternal 
happiness,"  .  ..."  I  believe  that  man  requires  religion. 
I  believe  that  there  is  no  true  religion  now  existing.  I 
believe  that  there  will  be  one.  It  will  not,  after  eighteen 
hundred  years  of  existence,  be  of  questionable  truth  and 
utility,  but  perhaps  in  eighteen  years  be  entirely  spread 
over  the  earth,  an  effectual  remedy  for  all  human  suffer- 
ing, and  a  source  of  perpetual  joy.  It  will  not  need  im- 
mense learning  to  be  understood,  it  will  be  subject  to  no 
controversy."  .  .  .  .  "  Another  sufficient  reason  for  sui- 
cide is,  that  I  was  this  morning  out  of  temper  with  Mrs. 
Douglas  (for  no  fault  of  hers).  I  did  not  betray  myself  in 
the  least,  but  I  reflected  to  be  exposed  to  the  possibility 
of  such  an  event  once  a  year  was  evil  enough  to  render 
life  intolerable.  The  disgrace  of  using  an  impatient  word 
is  to  me  overpowering."  .  ..."  I  am  stupefied  with  writ- 
ing, and  yet  I  cannot  go  my  long  journey  without  taking 
leave  of  one  from  whom  I  have  received  so  much  kind- 
ness, and  from  whose  society  so  much  delight.  My  place 
is  booked  in  Charon's  boat  to-night  at  twelve.  Diana 
kindly  consents  to  be  of  the  party.  This  is  handsome  of 
her.  She  was  not  looked  for  on  my  part.  Perhaps  she  is 
willing  to  acknowledge  my  obedience  to  her  laws  by  a  gen- 
teel compliment.  Good.  The  gods,  then,  are  grateful." 
To  the  coroner  and  his  jury  he  wrote,  "  Let  me  suggest 
the  following  verdict,  as  combining  literal  truth  with  jus- 
tice :  *  Died  by  his  own  hand,  but  not  feloniously.'  If  I 
have  offended  God,  it  is  for  God,  not  you,  to  inquire. 
Especial  public  duties  I  have  none.  If  I  have  deserted 
any  engagement  in  society,  let  the  parties  aggrieved  con- 
sign my  name  to  obloquy.  I  have  for  nearly  seven  years 
been  disentangling  myself  from  all  my  engagements,  that 
I  might  at  last  be  free  to  retire  from  life.  I  am  free  to- 
day, and  avail  myself  of  my  liberty.  1  cannot  be  a  good 
man,  and  prefer  death  to  being  a  bad  one,  —  as  bad  as  I 
have  been  and  as  others  are." 


CONTRASTS.  28 1 

And  there  was  Blake  —  "  artist,  genius,  mystic,  or  mad- 
man ?  "    "  Probably  all,"  thought  Robinson,  one  of   his 
warmest  admirers  ;    for  he  had  admirers,  and  some  of 
them  were  eminent.      Coleridge  knew  him,  and  talked 
finely  about  him.     Wordsworth  thought  he  had  "  in  him 
the  elements  of  poetry  much  more  than  either  Byron  or 
Scott."     Lamb  liked  his  poems.     Hazlitt  said  of  them, 
"  They  are  beautiful,  and  only  too  deep  for  the  vulgar." 
His  genius  as  an  artist  was  praised  by  Flaxman  and  Fu- 
seli.     His  countenance  is  described  as   "  Socratic,"  with 
"  an  expression  of  great  sweetness  ;  "    "  when  animated 
he  had  about  him  an  air  of  inspiration."    Though  in  great 
poverty,  he  was  ever  a  gentleman ;  with  genuine  dignity 
and  independence,  he  scorned  all  presents.     He  wrote 
songs,  composed  music,  and  painted,  at  the  same  time  he 
pursued  his  business  as  an  engraver.     Among  his  friends 
he  gave  out  that  his  pictures  were  copied  from  great 
works  revealed  to  him,  and  that  his  lessons  in  art  were 
given  him  by  celestial  tongues.     When  he  spoke  of  his 
"  visions,"  it  was  in  the  ordinary  unemphatic  tones   in 
which  we  speak  of  every-day  matters.      He  conversed  fa- 
miliarly with  the  spirits  of  Homer,  Moses,  Pindar,  Dante, 
Shakespeare,  Voltaire,  Sir  William  Wallace,  Milton,  and 
other  illustrious  dead,  giving  repeatedly  their  very  words 
n  their  conversations.    Sometimes,  too,  he  wrangled  with 
cemons.    His  books  (and  his  MSS.  are  immense  in  quan- 
tity) are  dictations  from  the  spirits.     He  possessed,  it  was 
said,  the  highest  and  most  exalted  powers  of  the  mind,  but 
not  the  lower.     "  He  could  fly,  but  he  could  not  walk  ;  he 
had  genius  and  inspiration,  without  the  prosaic  balance- 
wheel  of  common  sense."      In  poetry,  it  was  observed 
he  most  enjoyed  the  parts  which  to  others   are  most  ob- 
icure.     His  wife   Katherine,  good  soul,  believed  in  him, 
and  was  invaluable  to  him.     She  was  ever  sitting  by  his 
side,  or  assisting  him  at  the  press.     "  You  know,  dear," 
the  said,  believingly,   "the  first  time  you  saw  God  was 


282  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

when  you  were  four  years  old,  and  he  put  his  head  to 
the  window,  and  set  you  a-screaming."  Both  believed 
that  his  pictures  were  veritable  visions  transferred  to  the 
canvas  or  the  plate.  Sixteen  of  his  mystical  designs  are 
illustrations  of  "  The  Gates  of  Paradise,"  one  hundred 
of  "Jerusalem,"  and  twenty-seven  " singular,  but  power- 
ful drawings  "  disclose  the  mysteries  of  hell.  He  wrote 
to  Flaxman,  addressing  him  as  "  Dear  Sculptor  of  Eter- 
nity," and  saying,  in  his  strange,  wild  way,  "  In  my 
brain  are  studies  and  chambers  filled  with  books  and 
pictures  of  old,  which  I  wrote  and  painted  in  ages  of 
eternity,  before  my  mortal  life  ;  and  these  works  are  the 
delight  and  study  of  archangels."  A  friend  said  to  him, 
"  You  express  yourself  as  Socrates  used  to  do.  What  re- 
semblance do  you  suppose  there  is  between  your  spirit 
and  his?"  "The  same  as  between  our  countenances," 
he  answered.  After  a  pause  he  added,  "  I  was  Socrates  ;" 
and  then,  as  if  correcting  himself,  said,  "  a  sort  of  brother. 
I  must  have  had  conversations  with  him.  So  I  had  with 
Jesus  Christ.  I  have  an  obscure  recollection  of  having 
been  with  both  of  them."  Once  he  said,  "  There  is  no 
use  in  education.  I  hold  it  to  be  wrong.  It  is  the  great 
sin.  It  is  eating  of  the  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good 
and  evil.  This  was  the  fault  of  Plato.  He  knew  of  noth- 
ing but  the  virtues  and  vices,  and  good  and  evil.  There 
is  nothing  in  all  that.  Everything  is  good  in  God's  eyes." 
Being  asked  about  the  moral  character  of  Dante,  in  writ- 
ing his  "  Vision,"  —  was  he  pure  ?  "  Pure,"  said  Blake, 
"do  you  think  there  is  any  purity  in  God's  eyes  ?  The 
angels  in  heaven  are  no  more  so  than  we.  '  He  chargeth 
his  angels  with  folly.'"  He  afterward  represented  th^ 
Supreme  Being  as  liable  to  error.  "  Did  he  not  repent 
him  that  he  had  made  Nineveh  ?  "  Though  he  spoke  of 
his  happiness,  he  also  alluded  to  past  sufferings,  and  to 
suffering  as  necessar}\  "  There  is  suffering  in  heaven, 
Tor  where  there  is  the  capacity  of  enjoyment,  there  is  also 


CONTRASTS.  283 

the  capacity  of  pain."  Comparing  moral  with  natural 
evil,  he  said,  "  Who  shall  say  that  God  thinks  evil  ?  That 
is  a  wise  tale  of  the  Mahometans,  of  the  angel  of  the 
Lord  that  murdered  the  infant"  (alluding  to  the  Hermit 
of  Parnell).  "Is  not  every  infant  that  dies  of  disease 
murdered  by  an  angel  ? "  "I  saw  Milton,"  he  said  on 
one  occasion,  "  and  he  told  me  to  beware  of  being  mis- 
led by  his  Paradise  Lost.  In  particular  he  wished  me  to 
show  the  falsehood  of  the  doctrine,  that  carnal  pleasures 
arose  from  the  Fall.  The  Fall  could  not  produce  any 
pleasure."  He  spoke  of  Milton  as  being  at  one  time  a 
sort  of  classical  atheist,  and  of  Dante  as  being  now  with 
God.  His  faculty  of  vision,  he  said,  he  had  had  from 
early  infancy.  He  thought  all  men  partook  of  it,  but  it 
is  lost  for  want  of  being  cultivated.  "  I  assert  for  my- 
self," said  he,  "that  I  do  not  behold  the  outward  creation, 
and  that  to  me  it  is  hinderance  and  not  action.  '  What ! ' 
it  will  be  questioned,  'when  the  sun  rises,  do  you  not  see 
a  disc  of  fire  somewhat  like  a  guinea  ? '  Oh  no,  no,  no  ! 
I  see  an  mnumerable  company  of  the  heavenly  host,  cry- 
ing, '  Holy,  hoi}',  holy  is  the  Lord  God  Almighty.'  I  ques- 
tion not  my  corporeal  eye  any  more  than  I  would  question 
a  window  concerning  a  sight.  I  look  through  it,  and  not 
with  it."  .  ..."  I  have  written  more  than  Voltaire  or 
Rousseau.  Six  or  seven  epic  poems  as  long  as  Homer, 
and  twenty  tragedies  as  long  as  Macbeth."  .  ..."  I 
write  when  commanded  by  the  spirits,  and  the  moment  I 
have  written  I  see  the  words  fly  about  the  room  in  all  di- 
rections. It  is  then  published,  and  the  spirits  can  read, 
My  MS.  is  of  no  further  use.  I  have  been  tempted  to 
burn  my  MSS.,  but  my  wife  won't  let  me."  .  .  "  Men 
are  born  with  a  devil  and  an  angel."  .  .  ,  .  "  I  have 
never  known  a  very  bad  man,  who  had  not  something 
very  good  about  him,"  .  ..."  I  should  be  sorr\'  if  I  had 
any  earthly  fame,  for  whatever  natural  glory  a  man  has 
is  so  much  taken  from  his  spiritual  glory.      I  wish  to  do 


284  LIBRARY   NOTJiS. 

nothing  for  profit.  I  wish  to  live  for  art.  I  want  nothing 
whatever.  I  am  quite  happy."  For  the  greater  part  of 
his  life,  he  "  lived  in  a  garret,  on  crusts  of  bread."  Death 
he  considered  as  nothing  but  "  going  from  one  room  to 
another."  He  died  with  his  pencil  in  his  hand,  making  a 
likeness  of  his  wife,  and  chanting  pleasant  songs.  Died, 
she  said,  "  like  an  angel." 

And  George  Dyer  —  a  pet  acquaintance  of  Lamb's  — 
what  a  character  was  he  !  A  bundle  of  contradictions  if 
ever  there  was  one.  Poor  and  always  struggling,  but 
never  envious,  and  utterly  without  hatred  of  the  rich.  A 
poet  whose  poetry  was  to  himself  "  as  good  as  anybody's, 
and  anybody's  as  good  as  his  own."  A  bachelor,  his  life 
was  solitary,  but  he  never  thought  of  his  solitude,  till 
it  was  suggested  to  him  by  an  observing,  sympathizing 
widow,  who  kindly  and  generously  consented  to  share  it 
with  him  —  her  fourth  husband  !  He  is  characterized  by 
one  of  his  literary  friends  as  "  one  of  the  best  creatures 
morally  that  ever  breathed."  He  was  a  ripe  scholar,  but 
to  the  end  of  his  days  (and  he  lived  to  be  eighty-five)  he 
was  a  bookseller's  drudge.  He  made  indexes,  corrected 
the  press,  and  occasionally  gave  lessons  in  Greek  and 
Latin.  Simple  and  kind,  he  repeatedly  gave  away  his 
last  guinea.  He  was  the  author  of  the  Life  and  Writings 
of  Robert  Robinson,  which  was  pronounced  by  Words- 
worth and  Samuel  Parr  one  of  the  best  biographies  in 
the  language.  The  charm  of  the  book  is  that  Robinson's 
peculiar  humor  was  wholly  unappreciated  by  the  sim- 
ple-minded biographer.  Robinson  was  a  fine  humorist ; 
Dyer  had  absolutely  no  sense  of  humor.  It  was  when  he 
was  on  his  way  from  Lamb's  to  Mrs.  Barbauld's,  that, 
in  his  absent-mindedness,  he  walked  straight  into  New 
River,  and  was  with  difficulty  saved  from  drowning. 
(Young,  one  of  Fielding's  intimate  friends,  who  sat  for 
the  portrait  of  Parson  Adams,  was  another  such  charac- 
ter.    He  also  "  supported  an  uncomfortable  existence  by 


CONTRASTS.  285 

translating  for  the  booksellers  from  the  Greek,"  over- 
flowed with  benevolence  and  learning,  and  was  noted  for 
his  absence  of  mind.  He  had  been  chaplain  of  a  regi- 
ment during  Marlborough's  wars  ;  and  "  meditating  one 
evening  upon  the  glories  of  nature,  and  the  goodness  of 
Providence,  he  walked  straight  into  the  camp  of  the 
enemy ;  nor  was  he  aroused  from  his  reverie  till  the  hos- 
tile sentinel  shouted,  '  Who  goes  there  ? '  The  command- 
ing officer,  finding  that  he  had  come  among  them  in  sim- 
plicity and  not  in  guile,  allowed  him  to  return,  and  lose 
himself,  if  he  pleased,  in  meditations  on  his  danger  and 
deliverance.")  It  is  said  that  certain  roguish  young 
ladies.  Dyer's  cousins,  lacking  due  reverence  for  learning 
and  poetry,  were  wont  to  heap  all  sorts  of  meats  upon 
the  worthy  gentleman's  plate  at  dinner,  he  being  lost  in 
conversation  until  near  the  close  of  the  repast,  when  he 
would  suddenly  recollect  himself  and  fall  to  till  he  had 
finished  the  whole.  Talfourd,  speaking  of  Lamb  and 
Dyer,  says,  "  No  contrast  could  be  more  vivid  than  that 
presented  by  the  relations  of  each  to  the  literature  they 
both  loved, — one  divining  its  inmost  essences,  plucking 
out  the  heart  of  its  mysteries,  shedding  light  on  its  dim- 
mest recesses  ;  the  other  devoted  with  equal  assiduity  to 
its  externals.  Books,  to  Dyer,  '  were  a  real  world,  both 
pure  and  good  ; '  among  them  he  passed,  unconscious  of 
time,  from  youth  to  extreme  old  age,  vegetating  on  their 
dates  and  forms,  and  '  trivial  fond  records,'  in  the  learned 
air  of  great  libraries,  or  the  dusty  confusion  of  his  own, 
with  the  least  possible  apprehension  of  any  human  inter- 
est vital  in  their  pages,  or  of  any  spirit  of  wit  or  fancy 
glancing  across  them.  His  life  was  an  academic  pasto- 
ral. Methinks  I  see  his  gaunt,  awkward  form,  set  off  by 
trousers  too  short,  like  those  outgrown  by  a  gawky  lad, 
and  a  rusty  coat  as  much  too  large  for  the  wearer,  hang- 
ing about  him  like  those  garments  which  the  aristocratic 
Milesian  peasantry  prefer  to  the  most  comfortable  rustic 


286  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

dress  ;  his  long  head  silvered  over  with  short  yet  strag- 
gling hair,  and  his  dark  gray  eyes  glistening  with  faith 
and  wonder,  as  Lamb  satisfies  the  curiosity  which  has 
gently  disturbed  his  studies  as  to  the  authorship  of  the 
Waverley  Novels,  by  telling  him,  in  the  strictest  confi- 
dence, that  they  are  the  works  of  Lord  Castlereagh,  just 
returned  from  the  Congress  of  Sovereigns  at  Vienna, 
Off  he  runs,  with  animated  stride  and  shambling  enthu- 
siasm, nor  stops  till  he  reaches  Maida  Hill,  and  breathes 
his  news  into  the  startled  ear  of  Leigh  Hunt,  who,  '  as  a 
public  writer,'  ought  to  be  possessed  of  the  great  fact 
with  which  George  is  laden  !  Or  shall  I  endeavor  to  re- 
vive the  bewildered  look  with  which  just  after  he  had 
been  announced  as  one  of  Lord  Stanhope's  executors 
and  residuary  legatees,  he  received  Lamb's  grave  inquiry 
whether  it  was  true,  as  commonly  reported,  that  he  was 
to  be  made  a  lord  ?  *  Oh  dear,  no,  Mr.  Lamb,'  responded 
he  with  earnest  seriousness,  but  not  without  a  moment's 
quivering  vanity.  *  I  could  not  think  of  such  a  thing  ;  it 
is  not  true,  I  assure  you.'  '  I  thought  not,'  said  Lamb, 
*  and  I  contradict  it  wherever  I  go.  But  the  government 
will  not  ask  your  consent  j  they  may  raise  you  to  the 
peerage  without  your  ever  knowing  it'  '  I  hope  not,  Mr. 
Lamb  ;  indeed  —  indeed,  I  hope  not.  It  would  not  suit 
me  at  all,'  responded  Dyer,  and  went  his  way  musing  on 
the  possibility  of  a  strange  honor  descending  on  his  re- 
luctant brow.  Or  shall  I  recall  the  visible  presentment 
of  his  bland  unconsciousness  of  evil  when  his  sportive 
friend  taxed  it  to  the  utmost  by  suddenly  asking  what  he 
thought  of  the  murderer  Williams,  who,  after  destroying 
two  families  in  Ratcliffe  Highway,  had  broken  prison  by 
suicide,  and  whose  body  had  just  before  been  conveyed 
in  shocking  procession  to  its  cross-road  grave  ?  The  des- 
perate attempt  to  compel  the  gentle  optimist  to  speak  ill 
of  a  mortal  creature  produced  no  happier  success  than 
the  answer,  '  Why,  I  should  think,  Mr.  Lamb,  Jie  must 


CONTRASTS.  287 

have  been  rather  an  eccentric  character.' "  Honest,  snn- 
pie  soul  !  My  Uncle  Toby  over  again,  for  all  the  world, 
What  a  contrast  with  all  these  ailing  souls  was  the  mag- 
nificent Christopher  North  !  You  remember  the  scene  of 
his  triumph  on  the  occasion  of  his  first  lecture  to  the 
moral  philosophy  class  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh. 
It  deserves  to  be  thought  of  along  with  the  "  trial 
scenes  "  we  have  been  reviewing.  The  contest  for  the 
professorship  had  been  bitterly  fought  over  a  period  of 
four  months,  with  Sir  William  Hamilton  for  competitor, 
—  Sir  James  Mackintosh  and  Mr.  Malthus  being  only 
possible  candidates.  Austerity  and  prejudice — essential 
and  saintly  elements  in  all  good  Scotsmen — instinctively 
combined  against  him,  and  inveterately  pursued  him. 
"When  it  was  found  useless  to  gainsay  his  mental  quali- 
fications for  the  office,  or  to  excite  odium  on  the  ground 
of  his  literary  offenses,  the  attack  was  directed  against 
his  moral  character,  and  it  was  broadly  insinuated  that 
this  candidate  for  the  chair  of  ethics  was  himself  a  man 
of  more  than  doubtful  morality ;  that  he  was,  in  fact,  not 
merely  a  'reveler,'  and  a  'blasphemer,'  but  a  bad  hus- 
band, a  bad  father,  a  person  not  fit  to  be  trusted  as  a 
teacher  of  youth."  A  "  bad  husband  "  to  the  good 
woman  he  thus  memorably  characterized  in  a  letter  to 
one  of  his  friends  :  "  I  was  this  morning  married  to  Jane 
Penney,  and  doubt  not  of  receiving  your  blessing,  which, 
from  your  brotherly  heart,  will  delight  me,  and  doubtless 
not  be  unheard  by  the  Almighty.  She  is  gentleness,  in- 
nocence, sense,  and  feeling,  surpassed  by  no  woman,  and 
has  remained  pure,  as  from  her  Maker's  hands  ; "  the 
mother  of  all  those  children  he  loved  so,  —  the  death  of 
whom,  in  his  ripe  manhood  and  in  the  bloom  of  his  fame, 
nearly  broke  his  heart  1  Sir  Walter  and  other  powerful 
friends  repelled  the  slanders.  Wilson  triumphed.  Still 
he  was  pursued  ;  his  enemies  determined  he  should  be 
put  down,  humiliated,  even  in  his  own  class-room.     An 


288  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

eye-witness  thus  describes  the  scene  on  the  occasion  of 
the  deliver}'  of  the  professor's  first  lecture  :  "  There  was 
a  furious  bitterness  of  feeling  against  him  among  the 
classes  of  which  probably  most  of  his  pupils  would  con- 
sist, and  although  I  had  no  prospect  of  being  among 
them,  I  went  to  his  first  lecture,  prepared  to  join  in  a 
cabal,  which  I  understood  was  formed  to  put  him  down. 
The  lecture-room  was  crowded  to  the  ceiling.  Such  a 
collection  of  hard-browed,  scowling  Scotsmen,  muttering 
over  their  knobsticks,  I  never  saw.  The  -professor  en- 
tered with  a  bold  step,  amid  profound  silence.  Every 
one  expected  some  deprecatory  or  propitiatory  introduc- 
tion of  himself  and  his  subject,  upon  which  the  mass  was 
to  decide  against  him,  reason  or  no  reason ;  but  he  began 
in  a  voice  of  thunder  right  into  the  matter  of  his  lecture, 
kept  up  unflinchingly  and  unhesitatingly,  without  a  pause, 
a  flow  of  rhetoric  such  as  Dugald  Stewart  or  Thomas 
Brown,  his  predecessors,  never  delivered  in  the  same 
place.  Not  a  word,  not  a  murmur  escaped  his  captivated, 
I  ought  to  say  his  conquered  audience,  and  at  the  end 
they  gave  him  a  downright  unanimous  burst  of  applause. 
Those  who  came  to  scoff  remained  to  praise."  The 
ruling  classes  in  educational  matters  could  not  conceive 
of  the  fitness  of  a  man  like  Wilson  for  the  moral  philos- 
ophy chair  in  a  university.  The  giant  he  was  physically, 
with  appetites  and  passions  to  match,  he  was  a  reproach 
to  the  feeble,  a  terror  to  the  timid,  and  a  horror  to  the 
**  unco  guid,  or  the  rigidly  righteous."  The  truth  of  him 
was  such  an  exaggeration  of  the  average  man  that  the 
scholars  and  pedagogues  and  parsons  could  only  look 
upon  him  as  a  monster,  with  a  character  as  monstrous  as 
his  nature.  He  is  described  as  "  long-maned  and  mighty, 
whose  eyes  were  'as  the  lightnings  of  fiery  flame,'  and 
h's  voice  like  an  organ  bass  ;  who  laid  about  him,  when 
the  fit  was  on,  like  a  Titan,  breaking  small  men's  bones ; 
who  was  loose  and  careless  in  his  apparel   even  as  in  all 


CONTRASTS.  289 

things  he  seemed  too  strong  and  primitive  to  heed  much 
the  niceties  of  custom,"  In  his  youth,  he  "  ran  three 
miles  for  a  wager  against  a  chaise,"  and  came  out  ahead. 
Somewhat  later  he  "gained  a  bet  by  walking,  toe  and 
heel,  six  miles  in  two  minutes  within  the  hour."  When 
he  was  twenty-one,  height  five  feet  eleven  inches,  weight 
eleven  stone,  he  leaped,  with  a  run,  twenty-three  feet  "  on 
a  slightly  inclined  plane,  perhaps  an  inch  to  a  yard,"  and 
"  was  admitted  to  be  (Ireland  excepted)  the  best  far 
leaper  of  his  day  in  England."  He  could  jump  twelve 
yards  in  three  jumps,  with  a  great  stone  in  each  hand. 
**  With  him  the  angler's  silent  trade  was  a  ruling  passion. 
He  did  not  exaggerate  to  the  Shepherd  in  the  Noctes, 
when  he  said  that  he  had  taken  '  a  hundred  and  thirty  in 
one  day  out  of  Loch  Aire,'  as  we  see  by  his  letters  that 
even  larger  numbers  were  taken  by  him."  Of  his  pugil- 
istic skill,  it  is  said  by  De  Quincey  that  "  there  was  no 
man  who  had  any  talents,  real  or  fancied,  for  thumping 
or  being  thumped,  but  he  had  experienced  some  preeing 
of  his  merits  from  Mr.  Wilson."  "  Meeting  one  day  with 
a  rough  and  unruly  wayfarer,  who  showed  inclination  to 
pick  a  quarrel  concerning  right  of  passage  across  a  cer- 
tain bridge,  the  fellow  obstructed  the  way,  and  making 
himself  decidedly  obnoxious,  Wilson  lost  all  patience, 
and  offered  to  fight  him.  The  man  made  no  objection 
to  the  proposal,  but  replied  that  he  had  better  not  fight 
with  him,  as  he  was  so  and  so,  mentioning  the  name  of 
a  (then  not  unknown)  pugilist.  This  statement  had,  as 
may  be  supposed,  no  effect  in  dampening  the  belligerent 
intentions  of  the  Oxonian  ;  he  knew  his  own  strength, 
and  his  skill  too.  In  one  moment  off  went  his  coat,  and 
he  set  to  upon  his  antagonist  in  splendid  style.  The 
astonished  and  punished  rival,  on  recovering  from  his 
blows  and  surprise,  accosted  him  thus  :  '  You  can  only 
be  one  of  the  two  :  you  are  either  Jack  Wilson  or  the 
devil.'  "  His  pedestrian  feats  were  marvelous.  "  On 
19 


290  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

one  occasion,"  writes  an  old  classmate  of  Wilson's  at  Ox- 
ford, "  having  been  absent  a  day  or  two,  we  asked  him, 
on  his  return  to  the  common  room,  where  he  had  been. 
He  said.  In  London.  When  did  you  return  ?  This  morn- 
ing. How  did  you  come  ?  On  foot.  As  we  all  ex- 
pressed surprise,  he  said,  *  Why,  the  fact  is,  I  dined 
yesterday  with  a  friend  in  Grosvenor  (I  think  it  was) 
Square,  and  as  I  quitted  the  house,  a  fellow  who  was 
passing  was  impertinent  and  insulted  me,  upon  which  I 
knocked  him  down ;  and  as  I  did  not  choose  to  have 
myself  called  in  question  for  a  street  row,  I  at  once 
started,  as  I  was,  in  my  dinner  dress,  and  never  stopped 
until  I  got  to  the  college  gate  this  morning,  as  it  was 
being  opened.'  Now  this  was  a  walk  of  fifty-eight  miles 
at  least,  which  he  must  have  got  over  in  eight  or  nine 
hours  at  most,  supposing  him  to  have  left  the  dinner- 
party at  nine  in  the  evening."  Some  years  later,  he 
walked  —  his  wife  accompanying  him  —  "  three  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  in  the  Highlands,  between  the  5th  of  July 
and  the  26th  of  August,  sojourning  in  divers  glens  from 
Sabbath  unto  Sabbath,  fishing,  eating,  and  staring." 
Mrs.  Wilson  returned  from  this  wonderful  tour  "  bonnier 
than  ever,"  and  Wilson  himself,  to  use  his  own  phrase, 
"  strong  as  an  eagle."  One  of  their  resting-places  was  at 
the  school-master's  house  in  Glenorchy.  While  there 
"  his  time  was  much  occupied  by  fishing,  and  distance 
was  not  considered  an  obstacle.  He  started  one  morn- 
ing at  an  early  hour  to  fish  in  a  loch  which  at  that  time 
abounded  in  trout,  in  the  Braes  of  Glenorchy,  called 
Loch  Toilk.  Its  nearest  point  was  thirteen  miles  distant 
from  his  lodgings  at  the  school-house.  On  reaching  it, 
and  unscrewing  the  butt-end  of  his  fishing-rod  to  get  the 
top,  he  found  he  had  it  not.  Nothing  daunted,  he  walked 
back,  breakfasted,  got  his  fishing-rod,  made  all  complete, 
and  off  again  to  Loch  Toil^.  He  could  not  resist  fishing 
on  the  river  when  a  pool  looked  inviting,  but  he  went 


CONTRASTS.  29I 

always  onward,  reaching  the  loch  a  second  time,  fished 
round  it,  and  found  that  the  long  summer  day  had  come 
to  an  end.  He  set  off  for  his  home  again  with  his  fish- 
ing-basket full,  and  confessing  somewhat  to  weariness. 
Passing  near  a  farm-house  whose  inmates  he  knew  (for 
he  had  formed  acquaintance  with  all),  he  went  to  get 
some  food.  They  were  in  bed,  for  it  was  eleven  o'clock 
at  night,  and  after  rousing  them,  the  hostess  hastened  to 
supply  him ;  but  he  requested  her  to  get  him  some 
whisky  and  milk.  She  came  with  a  bottle  full,  and  a 
can  of  milk,  with  a  tumbler.  Instead  of  a  tumbler,  he 
requested  a  bowl,  and  poured  the  half  of  the  whisky  in, 
alongr  with  half  the  milk.  He  drank  the  mixture  at  a 
draught,  and  while  his  kind  hostess  was  looking  on  with 
amazement,  he  poured  the  remainder  of  the  whisky  and 
milk  into  the  bowl,  and  drank  that  also.  He  then  pro- 
ceeded homeward,  performing  a  journey  of  not  less  than 
seventy  miles."  Prodigious  !  It  beat  the  achievement  of 
Phidippides,  who,  according  to  tradition,  ran  from  Athens 
to  Sparta,  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles,  in  two  days. 
But  here  is  a  street  scene,  related  to  his  daughter  by  a 
lady  who  saw  it,  which  illustrates  the  tremendous  pro- 
fessor of  moral  philosophy  still  further.  "  One  summer 
afternoon,  as  she  was  about  to  sit  down  to  dinner,  her 
servant  requested  her  to  look  out  of  the  window,  to  see  a 
man  cruelly  beating  his  horse.  The  sight  not  being  a 
very  gratifying  one,  she  declined,  and  proceeded  to  take 
her  seat  at  table.  It  was  quite  evident  that  the  servant 
had  discovered  something  more  than  the  ill-usage  of  the 
horse  to  divert  his  attention,  for  he  kept  his  eyes  fixed  on 
the  window,  again  suggesting  to  his  mistress  that  she 
ought  to  look  out.  Her  interest  was  at  length  excited, 
and  she  rose  to  see  what  was  going  on.  In  front  of  her 
house  (Moray  Place)  stood  a  cart  of  coals,  which  the 
i)Oor  victim  of  the  carter  was  unable  to  drag  along.  He 
nad  been  beating  the  beast  most  unmercifully,  when  at 


292  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

that  moment  Professor  Wilson,  walking  past,  had  seen 
the  outrage  and  immediately  interfered.  ITie  lady  said 
that  from  the  expression  of  his  face,  and  vehemence  of 
his  manner,  the  man  was  evidently  *  getting  it,'  though 
she  was  unable  to  hear  what  was  said.  The  carter,  exas- 
perated at  this  interference,  took  up  his  whip  in  a  threat- 
ening way,  as  if  with  the  intent  to  strike  the  professor. 
In  an  instant  that  well-nerved  hand  twisted  it  from  the 
coarse  fist  of  the  man  as  if  it  had  been  a  straw,  and  walk- 
ing quietly  up  to  the  cart  he  unfastened  its  trams,  and 
hurled  the  whole  weight  of  coals  into  the  street.  The 
rapidity  with  which  this  was  done  left  the  driver  of  the 
cart  speechless.  Meanwhile,  poor  Rosinante,  freed  from 
his  burden,  crept  slowly  away,  and  the  professor,  still 
clutching  the  whip  in  one  hand,  and  leading  the  horse  in 
the  other,  proceeded  through  Moray  Place  to  deposit  the 
wretched  animal  in  better  keeping  than  that  of  his 
driver."  Another  of  his  "  interferences  "  occurred  during 
vacation  time,  in  the  south  of  Scotland,  when  the  pro- 
fessor had  exchanged  the  gown  for  the  old  "  sporting 
jacket."  "On  his  return  to  Edinburgh,  he  was  obliged 
to  pass  through  Hawick,  where,  on  his  arrival,  finding  it 
to  be  fair-day,  he  readily  availed  himself  of  the  opportu- 
nity to  witness  the  amusements  going  on.  These  hap- 
pened to  include  a  '  little  mill '  between  two  members  of 
the  local  '  fancy.'  His  interest  in  pugilism  attracted  hini 
to  the  spot,  where  he  soon  discovered  something  very 
wrong,  and  a  degree  of  injustice  being  perpetrated  which 
he  could  not  stand.  It  was  the  work  of  a  moment  to 
espouse  the  weaker  side,  a  proceeding  which  naturally 
drew  down  upon  him  the  hostility  of  the  opposite  party. 
This  result  was  to  him,  however,  of  little  consequence. 
There  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  beat  or  be  beaten.  He 
was  soon  '  in  position  ; '  and,  before  his  unknown  adver- 
sary well  knew  what  was  coming,  the  skilled  fist  of  the 
piofessor  had  planted  such  a  '  facer  '  as  did  not  require 


CONTRASTS.  293 

repetition.  Another  '  round '  was  not  called  for ;  and 
leaving  the  discomfited  champion  to  recover  at  his  lei- 
sure, the  professor  walked  coolly  away  to  take  his  seat  in 
the  stage-coach,  about  to  start  for  Edinburgh."  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  such  a  gigantic  specimen  of  human 
nature  was  thought  by  the  steady-going  and  saintly  Edin- 
burghers,  who  tried  men  by  mathematics  and  the  cate- 
chism, to  be  preposterously  unfit  for  the  chair  of  ethics 
in  their  hallowed  university  ?  They  did  not  know  then 
that  the  monster  they  hunted  was  capable  of  producing  a 
description  of  a  fairy's  funeral  —  one  of  the  most  exqui- 
site bits  of  prose  composition  in  literature,  which  is  said 
to  have  so  impressed  Lord  Jeffrey's  mind  that  he  never 
was  tired  of  repeating  it.  Read  it,  and  say  you  if  any- 
body but  Christopher  North  could  have  written  it  : 
"  There  it  was,  on  a  little  river  island,  that  once,  whether 
sleeping  or  waking  we  know  not,  we  saw  celebrated  a 
fairy's  funeral.  First  we  heard  small  pipes  playing,  as  if 
no  bigger  than  hollow  rushes  that  whisper  to  the  night 
winds ;  and  more  piteous  than  aught  that  trills  from 
earthly  instrument  was  the  scarce  audible  dirge  !  It 
seemed  to  float  over  the  stream,  every  foam-bell  emitting 
a  plaintive  note,  till  the  fairy  anthem  came  floating  over 
our  couch,  and  then  alighting  without  footsteps  among 
the  heather.  The  pattering  of  little  feet  was  then  heard, 
as  if  living  creatures  were  arranging  themselves  in  order, 
and  then  there  was  nothing  but  a  more  ordered  hymn. 
The  harmony  was  like  the  melting  of  musical  dew-drops, 
and  sang,  without  words,  of  sorrow  and  death.  We 
opened  our  eyes,  or  rather  sight  came  to  them  when 
closed,  and  dream  was  vision.  Hundreds  of  creatures, 
no  taller  than  the  crest  of  the  lapwing,  and  all  hanging 
down  their  veiled  heads,  stood  in  a  circle  on  a  green  plat 
among  the  rocks ;  and  in  the  midst  was  a  bier,  framed  as 
.t  seemed  of  flowers  unknown  to  the  Highland  hills;  and 
gn  the  bier  a  fairy  lying  with  uncovered  face,  pale  as  a 


294  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

lily,  and  motionless  as  the  snow.  The  dirge  grew  fainter 
and  fainter,  and  then  died  quite  away ;  when  two  of  the 
creatures  came  from  the  circle,  and  took  their  station, 
one  at  the  head,  the  other  at  the  foot  of  the  bier.  They 
sang  alternate  measures,  not  louder  than  the  twitter  of 
the  awakened  woodlark  before  it  goes  up  the  dewy  air, 
but  dolorous  and  full  of  the  desolation  of  death.  The 
flower-bier  stirred  ;  for  the  spot  on  which  it  lay  sank 
slowly  down,  and  in  a  few  moments  the  greensward  was 
smooth  as  ever,  the  very  dews  glittering  above  the  buried 
fairy.  A  cloud  passed  over  the  moon ;  and,  with  a  choral 
lament,  the  funeral  troop  sailed  duskily  away,  heard  afar 
off,  so  still  was  the  midnight  solitude  of  the  glen.  Then 
the  disenthralled  Orchy  began  to  rejoice  as  before, 
through  all  her  streams  and  falls ;  and  at  the  sudden 
leaping  of  the  waters  and  outbursting  of  the  moon,  we 
awoke." 


XI. 

TYPES. 

"  It  never  rains  but  it  pours,"  is  the  pat  proverb  of  all 
the  world  to  express  its  belief  in  the  inevitableness  and 
omnipotence  of  extremes.  Carlyle  has  enlarged  upon  it 
significantly,  in  that  famous  passage  in  which  he  likens 
men  collectively  to  sheep.  Like  sheep,  he  says,  are  we 
seen  ever  running  in  torrents  and  mobs,  if  we  ever  run  at 
all.  "  Neither  know  we,  except  by  blind  habit,  where  the 
good  pastures  lie  :  solely  when  the  sweet  grass  is  between 
our  teeth,  we  know  it,  and  chew  it ;  also  when  the  grass 
is  bitter  and  scant,  we  know  it,  —  and  bleat  and  butt : 
these  last  two  facts  we  know  of  a  truth,  and  in  very  deed. 
Thus  do  men  and  sheep  play  their  parts  on  this  nether 
earth  ;  wandering  restlessly  in  large  masses,  they  know 
not  whither  ;  for  most  part,  each  following  his  neighbor, 
and  his  own  nose.  Nevertheless,  not  always  ;  look  bet- 
ter, you  shall  find  certain  that  do,  in  some  small  degree, 
know  whither.  Sheep  have  their  bell-wether,  some  ram 
of  the  folds,  endued  with  more  valor,  with  clearer  vision 
than  other  sheep  ;  he  leads  them  through  the  wolds,  by 
height  and  hollow,  to  the  woods  and  water-courses,  for 
covert  or  for  pleasant  provender  ;  courageously  marching, 
and  if  need  be  leaping,  and  with  hoof  and  horn  doing 
battle,  in  the  van  :  him  they  courageously,  and  with  as- 
sured heart,  follow.  Touching  it  is.  as  every  herdsman 
will  inform  you,  with  what  chivalrous  devotedness  these 
woolly  hosts  adhere  to  their  wether ;  and  rush  after  him, 
through  good  report  and  through  bad  report,  were  it  into 
safe  shelters  and   green  thymy  nooks,  or  into  asphaltic 


296  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

lakes  and  the  jaws  of  devouring  lions.  Even  also  must 
we  recall  that  fact  which  we  owe  Jean  Paul's  quick  eye : 
*  If  you  hold  a  stick  before  the  wether,  so  that  he,  by 
necessity,  leaps  in  passing  you,  and  then  withdraw  your 
stick,  the  flock  will  nevertheless  all  leap  as  he  did ;  and 
the  thousandth  sheep  shall  be  found  impetuously  vault- 
ing over  air,  as  the  first  did  over  an  otherwise  impassable 
barrier.' " 

Society  is  always  swaying  backward  and  forward  — 
vibrating,  like  the  pendulum,  from  one  extreme  to  an- 
other ;  for  a  moment  only,  now  and  then,  is  it  upright, 
and  governed  by  reason.  Moderation  is  hateful  to  it. 
There  is  a  pretty  passage  in  one  of  Lucian's  dialogues, 
where  Jupiter  complains  to  Cupid  that,  though  he  has 
had  so  many  intrigues,  he  was  never  sincerely  beloved 
In  order  to  be  loved,  says  Cupid,  you  must  lay  aside  your 
aegis  and  your  thunderbolts,  and  you  must  curl  and  per- 
fume your  hair,  and  place  a  garland  on  your  head,  and 
walk  with  a  soft  step,  and  assume  a  winning,  obsequious 
deportment.  But,  replied  Jupiter,  I  am  not  willing  to  re- 
sign so  much  of  my  dignity.  Then,  replied  Cupid,  leave 
off  desiring  to  be  loved.  He  wanted  to  be  Jupiter  and 
Adonis  at  the  same  time.  "  It  is  natural,"  says  Bracken- 
ridge,  in  Modern  Chivalry,  "  to  distrust  him  who  proposes 
to  stop  short  of  what  seems  a  complete  reform.  We  are 
right,  say  the  people.  You  are  right,  says  the  man  of  pru- 
dence. We  were  wrong,  say  the  people.  You  were  wrong, 
says  the  same  man."  The  majority  rules.  In  the  grove 
of  Gotama  lived  a  Brahman,  who,  having  bought  a  sheep 
in  another  village,  and  carrying  it  home  on  his  shoulder 
to  sacrifice,  was  seen  by  three  rogues,  who  resolved  to 
take  the  animal  from  him  by  the  following  stratagem  : 
Having  separated,  they  agreed  to  encounter  the  Brahman 
on  his  road  as  if  coming  from  different  parts.  One  of 
them  cried  out,  "  O  Brahman  !  why  dost  thou  carry  that 
dog  on  thy  shoulder  ? "     "It  is  not  a  dog,"  replied  the 


TYPES.  297 

Brahman  ;  "  it  is  a  sheep  for  sacrifice,"  As  he  went 
on,  the  second  knave  met  him,  and  put  the  same  ques- 
tion ;  whereupon  the  Brahman,  throwing  the  sheep  on 
the  ground,  looked  at  it  again  and  again.  Having  re- 
placed it  on  his  shoulder,  the  good  man  went  with  mind 
wavering  like  a  string.  But  when  the  third  rogue  met 
him  and  said,  "Father,  where  art  thou  taking  that  dog?" 
the  Brahman,  believing  his  eyes  bewitched,  threw  down 
the  sheep  and  hurried  home,  leaving  the  thieves  to  feast 
on  that  which  he  had  provided  for  the  gods. 

The  world  grows   tired   of  admiring,    and  delights  to 
limit  its  admiration.     "  Garrick,"  said  Hazlitt,  "  kept  up 
the  fever  of  public  admiration  as  long  as  anybody,  but 
when  he  returned  to  the  stage  after  a  short  absence  no 
one  went  to  see  him."     "The  old  Earl  of  Norwich,  who," 
said  Sir  William  Temple,  "  was  esteemed  the  greatest  wit 
in  Charles  the   First's  reign,  when   Charles  the  Second 
came  to  the  throne  was  thought  nothing  of."     Happy  if 
the  world's  favorite  to-day  be  not  its  victim  to-morrow. 
Traveling  through  Switzerland,  Napoleon  was  greeted  with 
such  enthusiasm  that  Bourrienne  said  to  him,  "  It  must 
be  delightful  to  be  greeted  with  such  demonstrations  of 
enthusiastic    admiration."     "  Bah  !  "    replied    Napoleon, 
"  this  same  unthinking  crowd,  under  a  slight  change  of 
circumstances,  would   follow  me   just  as  eagerly  to   the 
scaffold."     "  I  have,"  said  an  eminent  American  general 
to  Baron  de  Hiibner,  "the  greatest  horror  of  popular  dem- 
onstrations.    These  very  men  who  deafen  you  with  their 
cheers  to-day  are  capable  of  throwing  stones  and  mud  at 
you  to-morrow."     Mirabeau,  on  a  famous  occasion,  amid 
the  threatening  clamors  of  an  angry  crowd,  said,  "  A  few 
days  ago  I  too  was  to  be  carried  in  triumph,  and  now  they 
are  bawling  through  the  streets,  '  the  great  treason  of  the 
Count  of  Mirabeau.'     This  lesson  was  not  necessary  to 
remind  me  that  the  distance  is  short  between  the  Capitol 
and  the  Tarpeian  Rock."     "  What  throngs !  what  accla- 


298  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

mations,"  exclaimed  the  flatterers  of  Cromwell,  when  he 
was  proclaimed  Protector  of  the  Commonwealth  of  Eng- 
land. Cromwell  replied,  "  There  would  be  still  more,  if 
they  were  going  to  hang  me."  The  multitudes  that  went 
before  and  that  followed  Christ  into  Jerusalem,  crying, 
"  Hosanna  to  the  Son  of  David :  Blessed  is  he  that  cometh 
in  the  name  of  the  Lord  :  Hosanna  in  the  highest,"  "cried 
out  again,  Crucify  him.  Then  Pilate  said  unto  them, 
Why,  what  evil  hath  he  done  ?  and  they  cried  out  the 
more  exceedingly.  Crucify  him."  Madame  Roland  wrote 
trom  her  prison-cell  to  Robespierre,  "  It  is  not,  Robes- 
pierre, to  excite  your  compassion,  that  I  present  you  with 
a  picture  less  melancholy  than  the  truth.  I  am  above 
asking  your  pity ;  and  were  it  offered,  I  should  perhaps 
deem  it  an  insult.  I  write  for  your  instruction.  Fortune 
is  fickle  ;  and  popular  power  is  liable  to  change."  "  So- 
ciety," said  Macaulay,  writing  of  Byron,  "capricious  in 
its  indignation,  as  it  had  been  capricious  in  its  fondness, 
flew  into  a  rage  with  its  froward  and  petted  darling.  He 
had  been  worshiped  with  an  irrational  idolatry.  He  was 
persecuted  with  an  irrational  fury."  Junius,  in  the  cele- 
brated letter,  warns  the  king  that  "  while  he  plumes  him- 
self upon  the  security  of  his  title  to  the  crown,  he  should 
remember  that,  as  it  was  acquired  by  one  revolution,  it 
may  be  lost  by  another."  The  Jews,  said  Luther,  have  a 
story  of  a  king  of  Bashan,  whom  they  call  Og ;  they  say 
he  had  lifted  a  great  rock  to  throw  at  his  enemies,  but 
God  made  a  hole  in  the  middle,  so  that  it  slipped  down 
upon  the  giant's  neck,  and  he  could  never  rid  himself  of  it. 
Causes  of  good  or  evil  seem  to  accumulate,  when  a 
very  slight  thing  is  the  beginning  of  a  succession  of 
blessings  or  curses.  All  things  conspire,  till  the  recipi- 
ents of  blessings  are  smothered,  or  the  victims  of  curses 
are  crushed.  Till  the  cup  is  full,  overflowing;  "11  the 
burden  is  unbearable,  merciless  ;  till  good  becomes  sati 
ety,  or  evil  cruelty,  all  the  world  seems  to  delight  in  con- 
tributing or  robbing,  deifying  or  anathematizing. 


TYPES.  299 

"  Never  stoops  the  soaring  vulture 
On  his  quarry  in  the  desert, 
On  the  sick  or  wounded  bison, 
But  another  vulture,  watching 
From  his  high  aerial  lookout, 
Sees  the  downward  plunge  and  follows; 
And  a  third  pursues  the  second, 
Coming  from  the  invisible  ether. 
First  a  speck,  and  then  a  vulture, 
Till  the  air  is  dark  with  pinions. 
So  disasters  come  not  singly  ; 
But  as  if  they  watched  and  waited, 
Scanning  one  another's  motions. 
When  the  first  descends,  the  others 
Follow,  follow,  gathering  flock-wise 
Round  their  victim,  sick  and  wounded. 
First  a  shadow,  then  a  sorrow, 
Till  the  air  is  dark  with  anguish." 

"  What  a  noise  out-of-doors  ! "  exclaimed  Souvestre's 
Philosopher  from  his  attic  in  Paris.  "  What  is  the  mean- 
ing of  all  these  shouts  and  cries  ?  Ah  !  I  recollect :  this 
is  the  last  day  of  the  carnival,  and  the  maskers  are  pass- 
ing. Christianity  has  not  been  able  to  abolish  the  noisy 
bacchanalian  festivals  of  the  pagan  times,  but  it  has 
changed  the  names.  That  which  it  has  given  to  these 
'  days  of  liberty  '  announces  the  ending  of  the  feasts,  and 
the  month  of  fasting  which  should  follow ;  '  carn-a-val ' 
means  literally  '  down  with  flesh  meat ! '  It  is  a  forty 
days'  farewell  to  the  '  blessed  pullets  and  fat  hams,'  so 
celebrated  by  Pantagruel's  minstrel.  Man  prepares  for 
privation  by  satiety,  and  finishes  his  sins  thoroughly  be- 
fore he  begins  to  repent.  Why,  in  all  ages  and  among 
every  people,  do  we  meet  with  some  one  of  these  mad 
festivals  ?  Must  we  believe  that  it  requires  such  an  effort 
for  men  to  be  reasonable,  that  the  weaker  ones  have  need 
of  rest  at  intervals.  The  monks  of  La  Trappe,  who  are 
condemned  to  silence  by  their  rule,  are  allowed  to  speak 
once  in  a  month,  and  on  this  day,  they  all  talk  at  once 
from  the  rising  to  the  setting  of  the  sun." 


300  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

It  is  reported  of  Scaramouche,  the  first  famous  Italian 
comedian,  that  being  in  Paris,  and  in  great  want,  he  be- 
thought himself  of  constantly  plying  near  the  door  of  a 
noted  perfumer  in  that  city,  and  when  any  one  came  out 
who  had  been  buying  snuff,  never  failed  to  desire  a  taste 
of  them  :  when  he  had  by  this  means  got  together  a 
quantity  made  up  of  several  different  sorts,  he  sold  it 
again  at  a  lower  rate  to  the  same  perfumer,  who,  finding 
out  the  trick,  called  it  "  snuff  of  a  thousand  flowers." 
The  story  further  tells  us  that  by  this  means  he  got  a 
very  comfortable  subsistence,  until,  making  too  great 
haste  to  grow  rich,  he  one  day  took  such  an  unreason- 
able pinch  out  of  the  box  of  a  Swiss  officer  as  engaged 
him  in  a  quarrel,  and  obliged  him  to  quit  this  ingenious 
way  of  life. 

'*  I  remember,"  says  Cumberland,  in  his  Memoirs, 
'*  the  predicament  of  an  ingenious  mechanic  and  artist, 
who,  when  Rich  the  harlequin  was  the  great  dramatic  au- 
thor of  his  time,  and  wrote  successfully  for  the  stage, 
contrived  and  executed  a  most  delicious  serpent  for  one 
of  those  inimitable  productions,  in  which  Mr.  Rich,  justly 
disdaining  the  weak  aid  of  language,  had  selected  the 
classical  fable,  if  I  rightly  recollect,  of  Orpheus  and  Eu- 
rydice,  and,  having  conceived  a  very  capital  part  for  the 
serpent,  was  justly  anxious  to  provide  himself  with  a  per- 
former who  could  support  a  character  of  that  conse- 
quence with  credit  to  himself  and  his  author.  The  event 
answered  his  most  ardent  hopes  :  nothing  could  be  more 
perfect  than  his  entrances  and  exits  ;  nothing  ever  crawled 
across  the  stage  with  more  accomplished  sinuosity  than 
this  enchanting  serpent ;  every  one  was  charmed  with  its 
performance ;  it  twirled  and  twisted,  and  wriggled  itself 
about  in  so  divine  a  manner,  that  the  whole  world  was 
ravished  by  the  lovely  snake ;  nobles  and  non-noljles, 
rich  and  poor,  old  and  young,  reps  and  demi-reps,  flocked 
to  see  it  and  admire  it.     The  artist,  who  had  been  the 


TYPES.  301 

master  of  the  movement,  was  intoxicated  with  his  suc- 
cess ;  he  turned  his  hand  and  head  to  nothing  else  but 
serpents  ;  he  made  them  of  all  sizes ;  they  crawled  about 
his  shop  as  if  he  had  been  chief  snake-catcher  to  the 
furies  ;  the  public  curiosity  was  satisfied  with  one  serpent, 
and  he  had  nests  of  them  yet  unsold  3  his  stock  lay  dead 
upon  his  hands,  his  trade  was  lost,  and  the  man  was 
ruined,  bankrupt,  and  undone." 

Lecky  observes  that  when,  after  long  years  of  obsti- 
nate disbelief,  the  reality  of  the  great  discovery  of  Harvey 
dawned  upon  the  medical  world,  the  first  result  was  a 
school  of  medicine  which  regarded  man  simply  as  an  hy- 
draulic machine,  and  found  the  principle  of  every  malady 
in  imperfections  of  circulation. 

In  the  Arctic  region,  says  Dr.  Kane,  the  frost  is  so  in- 
tense as  to  burn.  Sudden  putrefaction  of  meat  takes 
place  at  a  temperature  of  thirty-five  degrees  below  zero. 
The  Greenlanders  consider  extreme  cold  as  favorable  to 
putrefaction.  The  Esquimaux  withdraw  the  viscera  im- 
mediately after  death,  and  fill  the  cavity  with  stones.  Dr. 
Kane  was  told  that  the  musk  ox  is  sometimes  tainted 
after  five  minutes  exposure  to  great  cold.  In  Italy,  south 
of  the  great  alluvial  plain  of  Lombardy,  and  away  from 
the  immediate  sea-coast,  the  lakes  occupy  the  craters  of 
extinguished  volcanoes.  In  Arabia,  travelers  declare, 
the  silence  of  the  desert  is  so  profound  that  it  soon 
ceases  to  be  soothing  or  solemn,  and  becomes  absolutely 
painful,  if  not  appalling.  In  Java,  that  magnificent  and 
fearful  clime,  the  most  lovely  flowers  are  found  to  con- 
ceal hidden  reptiles  ;  the  most  tempting  fruits  are  tinc- 
tured with  subtle  poisons ;  there  grow  those  splendid 
trees  whose  shadow  is  death ;  there  the  vampire,  an 
enormous  bat,  sucks  the  blood  of  the  victims  whose  sleep 
he  prolongs,  by  wafting  over  them  an  air  full  of  freshness 
and  perfume.  Darwin,  in  his  Voyage,  speaks  of  tho 
strange  mixture  of  sound  and  silence  which  pervades  tho 


302  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

shady  parts  of  the  wood  on  the  shore  of  Brazil.  The 
noise  from  the  insects  is  so  loud  that  it  may  be  heard 
even  in  a  vessel  anchored  several  hundred  yards  from 
the  shore ;  yet  within  the  recesses  of  the  forest  a  uni- 
versal silence  appears  to  reign.  At  Syracuse,  an  English 
gentleman  was  taken  to  a  dirty  cistern  ;  seventy  women 
were  washing,  with  their  clothes  tucked  up,  and  them- 
selves standing  in  a  pool,  —  a  disgusting  scene.  "  What 
do  you  bring  me  here  for  ,?  "  said  he  to  the  guide.  "  Why, 
sir,  this  is  the  Fountain  of  Arethusa."  In  the  Fourth 
Circle  of  Dante's  Hell  are  the  souls  of  the  Prodigal  and 
the  Avaricious  :  they  are  forever  rolling  great  weights, 
and  forever  smiting  each  other,  "  To  all  eternity,"  says 
the  poet,  "  they  shall  continue  butting  one  another."  A 
dung-hill  at  a  distance,  said  Coleridge,  sometimes  smells 
like  musk,  and  a  dead  dog  like  elder-flowers.  Scargill 
declared  that  an  Englishman  is  never  happy  but  when  he 
is  miserable ;  a  Scotchman  is  never  at  home  but  when  he 
is  abroad  ;  an  Irishman  is  at  peace  only  when  he  is  fight- 
ing. The  melancholy,  says  Horace,  hate  the  merry,  the 
jocose  the  melancholy  ;  the  volatile  dislike  the  sedate, 
the  indolent  the  stirring  and  vivacious ;  the  modest  man 
generally  carries  the  look  of  a  churl.  Meyer,  in  conver- 
sation with  Goethe,  said  he  saw  a  shoemaker  in  Italy  who 
hammered  his  leather  upon  the  antique  marble  head  of  a 
Roman  emperor.  The  lark,  that  sings  out  of  the  sky, 
purifies  himself,  like  the  pious  Mussulman,  in  the  dust  of 
the  ground.  The  nightingale,  they  say,  sings  with  his 
breast  against  a  thorn.  The  fragrant  white  pond  lily 
springs  from  the  same  black  mud  out  of  which  the  ye.- 
low  lily  sucks  its  obscene  life  and  noisome  odor.  An 
elephant,  that  no  quadruped  has  the  temerity  to  attaclc 
is  said  to  be  the  favorite  victim  of  a  worm  that  bores  into 
his  foot  and  slowly  tortures  him  to  death.  A  gnat,  ac- 
cording to  a  tradition  of  the  Arabs,  overcame  the  mighty 
Nimrod.     Enraged  at  the  destruction  of  his  gods  by  the 


TYPES.  303 

prophet  Abraham,  he  sought  to  slay  him,  and  waged  war 
against  him.  But  the  prophet  prayed  to  God,  and  said, 
"  Deliver  me,  O  God,  from  this  man,  who  worships  stones, 
and  boasts  himself  to  be  the  lord  of  all  beings  ; "  and 
God  said  to  him,  "  How  shall  I  punish  him  ?  "  And  the 
prophet  answered,  "  To  Thee  armies  are  as  nothing,  and 
the  strength  and  power  of  men  likewise.  Before  the 
smallest  of  thy  creatures  will  they  perish."  And  God 
was  pleased  at  the  faith  of  the  prophet,  and  he  sent  a 
gnat,  which  vexed  Nimrod  night  and  day,  so  that  he  built 
a  Boom  of  glass  in  his  palace,  that  he  might  dwell  therein, 
and  shut  out  the  insect.  But  the  gnat  entered  also,  an'1 
passed  by  his  ear  into  his  brain,  upon  which  it  fed,  and 
increased  in  size  day  by  day,  so  that  the  servants  of  Nim- 
rod beat  his  head  with  a  hammer  continually,  that  he 
might  have  some  ease  from  his  pain  ;  but  he  died,  after 
suffering  these  torments  for  four  hundred  years. 

"  The  grandiose  statues  of  Michel  Angelo,"  said  a 
traveler,  descanting  upon  the  art  and  architecture  of  old 
Rome,  "  appear  to  the  greatest  advantage  under  the  bold 
arches  of  Bramante.  There  —  between  those  broad  lines, 
under  those  prodigious  curves  —  placed  in  one  of  those 
courts,  or  near  one  of  the  great  temples  where  the  per- 
spective is  incomplete  —  the  statues  of  Michel  Angelo  dis- 
play their  tragic  attitudes,  their  gigantic  members,  which 
seem  animated  by  a  ray  from  the  divinity,  and  struggling 
to  mount  from  earth  to  heaven.  Bramante  and  Michel 
Angelo  detested  but  completed  each  other.  Thus  it  is 
often  in  human  nature.  Those  two  men  knew  not  that 
they  were  laborers  in  the  same  work.  And  history  is 
silent  upon  such  points  till  death  has  passed  over  her 
heroes.  Armies  have  fought  until  they  have  been  almost 
annihilated  on  the  field  of  battle ;  men  have  hated  and 
injured  one  another  by  their  calumnies  ;  the  learned  and 
powerful  persecute  and  seek  to  blot  their  fellows  from  the 
earth,  as  if  there  was  not  air  and  space  for  all ;   they 


304  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

know  not,  blinded  by  their  passions,  and  warped  by  the 
prejudices  of  envy,  that  the  future  will  blend  them  in  the 
same  glory,  that  to  posterity  they  will  represent  but  one 
sentnnent.  Bramante  and  Michel  Angelo,  enemies  during 
life,  are  reconciled  in  immortality." 

See  how  the  extremes  in  morals  and  legislation  met 
during  the  few  years  of  English  history  covering  the  Pro- 
tectorate and  the  Restoration.  Puritanism  and  liberty  of 
conscience,  whose  exponents  were  Cromwell  and  Milton, 
met  licentiousness  and  corrupted  loyalty,  with  Charles  II. 
and  Wycherley  for  representatives.  Cromwell  was  "  Puri- 
tanism armed  and  in  power  ;  "  Milton  was  its  apostle  and 
poet.  Charles  II.  was  kingcraft  besotted  ;  Wycherley  its 
jester  and  pimp.  Cromwell  —  farmer,  preacher,  soldier, 
party  leader,  prince  —  radical,  stem,  hopeful ;  Charles  — 
debauchee,  persecuting  skeptic,  faithless  ruler  ;  Milton  — 
lofty  in  his  Paradise  ;  Wycherley  —  nasty  in  his  Love  in 
a  Wood,  and  Country  Wife.  "  A  larger  soul  never  dwelt 
in  a  house  of  clay,"  said  one  who  had  been  much  about 
Cromwell,  after  his  death,  when  flattery  was  mute.  "  Old 
Goat "  was  the  name  given  to  Charles  by  one  who  knew 
him  best.  Cromwell,  "  after  all  his  battles  and  storms,  and 
all  the  plots  of  assassins  against  his  life,  died  of  grief  at 
the  loss  of  his  favorite  daughter,  and  of  watching  at  her 
side."  Charles  went  out  of  life  in  a  fit,  the  result  of  his 
horrible  excesses,  if  not  of  poison,  —  as  said  and  believed 
by  many,  administered  by  one  of  his  own  numerous  mis- 
tresses. 

First,  "the  Puritans,"  says  Macaulay,  "interdicted, 
under  heavy  penalties,  the  use  of  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  not  only  in  churches,  but  in  private  houses.  It 
was  a  crime  in  a  child  to  read  by  the  bedside  of  a  sick 
parent  one  of  those  beautiful  collects  which  had  soothed 
the  griefs  of  forty  generations  of  Christians.  Severe  pun- 
ishments were  denounced  against  such  as  should  presume 
to  blame  the  Calvinistic  mode  of  worship.     Clergymen 


TYPES.  305 

of  respectable  character  were  not  only  ejected  from  their 
benefices  by  thousands,  but  were  frequently  exposed  to 
the  outrages  of  a  fanatical  rabble.  Churches  and  sepul- 
chres, fine  works  of  art  and  curious  remains  of  antiquity, 
were  brutally  defaced.  The  Parliament  resolved  that  all 
pictures  in  the  royal  collection  which  contained  repre- 
sentations of  Jesus  or  of  the  Virgin  Mother  should  be 
burned.  Sculpture  fared  as  ill  as  painting.  Nymphs  and 
graces,  the  work  of  Ionian  chisels,  were  delivered  over  to 
Puritan  stone-masons  to  be  made  decent.  Against  the 
lighter  vices  the  ruling  faction  waged  war  with  a  zeal 
little  tempered  by  humanity  or  by  common-sense.  Public 
amusements,  from  the  masks  which  were  exhibited  at  the 
mansions  of  the  great  down  to  the  wrestling  matches  and 
grinning  matches  on  village  greens,  were  vigorously  at- 
tacked. One  ordinance  directed  that  all  the  May-poles 
in  England  should  forthwith  be  hewn  down.  One  of  the 
first  resolutions  adopted  by  Barebone's  Parliament  was 
that  no  person  should  be  admitted  into  the  public  service 
till  the  house  should  be  satisfied  with  his  real  godliness." 
Suddenly  the  wheel  turned.  "  The  same  people  who, 
by  a  solemn  objurgation,  had  excluded  even  the  posterity 
of  their  lawful  sovereign,  exhausted  themselves  in  festivals 
and  rejoicings  for  his  return."  .Restored  royalty  "  made 
it  a  crime  to  attend  a  dissenting  place  of  worship.  A 
single  justice  of  the  peace  might  convict  without  a  jury, 
and  might,  for  a  third  offense,  pass  sentence  of  transpor- 
tation beyond  the  sea,  or  for  seven  years.  The  whole 
soul  of  the  restored  church  was  in  the  work  of  crushing 
the  Puritans,  and  of  teaching  her  disciples  to  give  unto 
Caesar  the  things  which  were  Caesar's.  She  had  been  pil- 
laged and  oppressed  by  the  party  which  preached  an  au- 
stere morality.  She  had  been  restored  to  opulence  and 
honor  by  libertines.  Little  as  the  men  of  mirth  and  fash- 
ion were  disposed  to  shape  their  lives  according  to  her 
precepts,  they  were  yet  ready  to  fight  knee-deep  in  blood 
20 


306  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

for  her  cathedrals  and  palaces,  for  ever)'  line  of  her  ru- 
bric and  every  thread  of  her  vestments.  If  the  de- 
bauched cavalier  haunted  brothels  and  gambling-houses, 
he  at  least  avoided  conventicles.  If  he  ever  spoke  with- 
out uttering  ribaldry  and  blasphemy,  he  made  some 
amends  by  his  eagerness  to  send  Baxter  and  Howe  to  jail 
for  preaching  and  praying.  The  ribaldry  of  Etherege 
and  Wycherley  was,  in  the  presence  and  under  the  special 
sanction  of  the  head  of  the  church,  publicly  recited  by 
female  lips  in  female  ears,  while  the  author  of  the  Pil- 
grim's Progress  languished  in  a  dungeon  for  the  crime  of 
proclaiming  the  gospel  to  the  poor.  Then  came  those 
days  never  to  be  recalled  without  a  blush  —  the  days  of 
servitude  without  loyalty,  and  sensuality  without  love,  of 
dwarfish  talents  and  gigantic  vices,  the  paradise  of  cold 
hearts  and  narrow  minds,  the  golden  age  of  the  coward, 
the  bigot,  and  the  slave.  The  caresses  of  harlots  and  the 
jests  of  buffoons  regulated  the  manners  of  a  government 
which  had  just  ability  enough  to  deceive,  and  just  religion 
enough  to  persecute.  The  principles  of  liberty  were  the 
scoff  of  every  grinning  courtier,  and  the  Anathema  Mara- 
natha  of  every  fawning  dean.  Crime  succeeded  to  crime, 
ana  disgrace  to  disgrace,  till  the  race,  accursed  of  God 
and  man,  was  a  second  time  driven  forth  to  wander  on 
the  face  of  the  earth,  and  be  a  by-word  and  a  shaking  of 
the  head  to  the  nations." 

The  morality  of  the  court  was  exhibited  in  the  charac- 
ter of  the  sovereign,  according  to  whose  ethics  "  every 
person  was  to  be  bought ;  but  some  people  haggled  more 
about  their  price  than  others  ;  and  when  this  haggling 
was  very  obstinate  and  very  skillful,  it  was  called  by  some 
fine  name.  The  chief  trick  by  which  clever  men  kept  up 
the  price  of  their  abilities  was  called  integrity.  The  chief 
trick  by  which  handsome  women  kept  up  the  price  of 
their  beauty  was  called  modesty.  The  love  of  God,  the 
love  of  country,  the  love  of  family,  the  love  of  friends, 


TYPES.  307 

were  phrases  of  the  same  sort,  delicate  and  convenient 
synonyms  for  the  love  of  self." 

A  great  licentiousness,  says  Emerson,  treads  on  the 
heels  of  a  reformation.  How  many  times  in  the  history 
of  the  world  has  the  Luther  of  the  day  had  to  lament  the 
decay  of  piety  in  his  own  household!  "  Doctor,"  said  his 
wife  to  Martin  Luther,  one  day,  "  how  is  it  that,  whilst  sub- 
ject to  papacy,  we  prayed  so  often  and  with  such  fervor, 
whilst  now  we  pray  with  the  utmost  coldness  and  ver)' 
seldom  ?  "  "  The  courtiers  of  Charles  IL  were  very  dis- 
solute because  the  Puritans  were  too  strict ;  Addison  and 
Steele  were  respectable  because  Congreve  and  Wycherley 
were  licentious  ;  Wesley  was  zealous  because  the  church 
had  become  indifferent ;  the  revolution  of  1789  was  a  re- 
action against  the  manners  of  the  last  century,  and  the 
revolution  in  running  its  course  set  up  a  reaction  against 
itself."  "  The  drawing  a  certain  positive  line  in  morals," 
says  Hazlitt,  "  beyond  which  a  single  false  step  is  irre- 
trievable, makes  virtue  formal,  and  vice  desperate." 
"  Puritanism,"  says  Taine,  "  had  brought  on  an  orgie,  and 
fanatics  had  talked  down  the  virtues." 

"  To  what  a  place  you  come  in  search  of  knowledge  !  " 
exclaimed  a  bitter  republican  to  Castelar,  in  the  streets 
of  Rome,  during  the  reign  of  the  pope,  not  long  before 
Victor  Emanuel.  "  Here  everybody  is  interested  about 
lottery  tickets  ;  no  one  for  an  idea  of  the  human  brain. 
The  commemoration  of  the  anniversary  of  Shakespeare 
has  been  prohibited  in  this  city  of  the  arts.  Her  censor- 
ship is  so  wise  that  when  a  certain  writer  wished  to  pub- 
lish a  book  on  the  discoveries  of  Volta,  she  let  loose  on 
him  the  thunders  of  the  Index,  thinking  it  treated  of  Vol- 
tairianism —  a  philosophy  which  leaves  neither  repose 
nor  digestion  to  our  cardinals.  On  the  other  hand,  a 
cabalistic  and  astrological  book,  professing  to  divine  the 
caprices  of  the  lottery,  has  been  printed  and  published 
under  the  pontifical  seal,  as  containing  nothing  contrary 


308  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

to  religion,  morals,  or  sovereign  authority.  Rabelais  knew 
this  city  —  Rabelais.  On  arriving,  in  place  of  writing  a 
dissertation  on  dogmas,  he  penned  one  on  lettuces,  the 
only  good  and  fresh  articles  in  this  cursed  dungeon. 
And  priest  though  he  was,  a  priest  of  the  sixteenth  cent- 
ury, more  religious  than  our  generation,  he  had  a  '.ong 
correspondence  with  the  pious  Bishop  of  Maillezais  on 
the  children  of  the  pope  ;  for  the  reverend  prelate  had 
especially  charged  him  to  ascertain  whether  the  Cava- 
Here  Pietro  Luis  Farnese  was  the  lawful  or  illegitimate 
son  of  his  holiness.     Believe  me,  Rabelais  knew  Rome." 

An  old  letter-writer,  inditing  from  Paris,  said,  "  Naked- 
ness is  so  innocent  here  !  In  a  refined  city,  one  gets 
back  to  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis ;  the  extremes  meet, 
and  Paradise  and  Paris  get  together." 

What  opposite  characters  were  the  leaders  in  the  Ref- 
ormation. The  monks  said  the  egg  was  laid  by  Erasmus, 
hatched  by  Luther.  "  On  the  other  hand,"  says  Motley, 
"he  was  reviled  for  not  taking  side  manfully  with  the 
reformer.  The  moderate  man  received  much  denuncia- 
tion from  zealots  on  either  side.  He  soon  clears  himself, 
however,  from  all  suspicions  of  Lutheranism.  He  is  ap- 
palled by  the  fierce  conflict  which  rages  far  and  wide. 
He  becomes  querulous  as  the  mighty  besom  sweeps  away 
sacred  dust  and  consecrated  cobwebs.  '  Men  should  not 
attempt  everything  at  once,'  he  writes,  '  but  rather  step 
by  step.  That  which  men  cannot  approve  they  must  look 
at  through  the  fingers.  If  the  godlessness  of  mankind 
requires  such  fierce  physicians  as  Luther,  if  man  cannot 
be  healed  with  soothing  ointments  and  cooling  drinks,  let 
us  hope  that  God  will  comfort,  as  repentant,  those  whom 
he  has  punished  as  rebellious.  If  the  dove  of  Christ  — ' 
not  the  owl  of  Minerva — would  only  fly  to  us,  some  meas» 
ure  might  be  put  to  the  madness  of  mankind.'  Mean- 
time, the  man  whose  talk  is  not  of  doves  and  owls,  the 
6erce  physician,  who  deals  not  with  ointments  and  cooling 


TYPES.  3OQ 

draughts,  strides  past  the  crowd  of  gentle  quacks  to  smite 
the  foul  disease.  Devils,  thicker  than  tiles  on  house-tops, 
scare  him  not  from  his  work.  Bans  and  bulls,  excommu- 
nications and  decrees,  are  rained  upon  his  head.  The 
paternal  emperor  sends  down  dire  edicts,  thicker  than 
hail  upon  the  earth.  The  Holy  Father  blasts  and  raves 
from  Rome.  Louvain  doctors  denounce,  Louvain  hang- 
men burn,  the  bitter,  blasphemous  books.  The  immoder- 
ate man  stands  firm  in  the  storm,  demanding  argument 
instead  of  illogical  thunder ;  shows  the  hangmen  and  the 
people,  too,  outside  the  Elster  gate  at  Wittenberg,  that 
papal  bulls  will  blaze  as  merrily  as  heretic  scrolls." 

Erasmus  was  a  philosophical  thinker  ;  Luther  a  bold 
actor.  The  former  would  reform  by  the  slow  processes 
of  education  ;  the  latter  by  revolution.  "  Without  Eras- 
mus," says  Froude,  "Luther would  have  been  impossible  ; 
and  Erasmus  really  succeeded  —  so  much  of  him  as  de- 
served to  succeed  —  in  Luther's  victory,"  Erasmus  said, 
"  There  is  no  hope  for  any  good.  It  is  all  over  with  quiet 
learning,  thought,  piety,  and  progress  ;  violence  is  on  one 
side  and  folly  on  the  other  ;  and  they  accuse  me  of  having 
caused  it  all.  If  I  joined  Luther  I  could  only  perish  with 
him,  and  I  do  not  mean  to  run  my  neck  into  the  halter. 
Popes  and  emperors  must  decide  matters.  I  will  accept 
what  is  good,  and  do  as  I  can  with  the  rest.  Peace  on 
any  terms  is  better  than  the  justest  war."  Luther  said, 
"  I  take  Erasmus  to  be  the  worst  enemy  that  Christ  has 
had  for  a  thousand  years.  Intellect  does  not  understand 
religion,  and  when  it  comes  to  the  things  of  God  it  laughs 
at  them."  "  Whenever  I  pray,"  he  said,  "  I  pray  for  a 
curse  upon  Erasmus." 

Melancthon  was  as  different  from  Luther  as  Erasmus, 
He  was  the  theologian  of  the  three,  —  so  much  so  that 
the  scholars  were  all  jealous  of  him.  Sir  Thomas  More 
wrote  to  Erasmus  that  Tyndale  had  seen  Melancthon  in 
Paris;  that  Tyndale  was  afraid  "  if  France  should  receive 


3IO  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

the  word  of  God  by  him,  it  would  be  confirmed  in  the 
faith  of  the  Eucharist  contrary  to  the  sect  of  the  Wick- 
liffites."  "  I  have  been  born,"  said  Luther,  "  to  war  and 
fight  with  factions  and  devils,  therefore  my  books  are 
stormy  and  warlike.  I  must  root  out  the  stumps  and 
stocks,  cut  away  the  thorns  and  hedges,  fill  up  the  ditches, 
and  am  the  rough  forester,  to  break  a  path  and  make 
things  ready.  But  master  Philip  walks  gently  and  silently, 
tills  and  plants,  sows  and  waters  with  pleasure,  as  God 
has  gifted  him  richly."  When  Melancthon  arose  to  preach 
on  one  occasion,  he  took  this  for  a  text :  '*  I  am  the  good 
shepherd."  In  looking  round  upon  his  numerous  and  re- 
spectable audience,  his  natural  timidity  entirely  overcame 
him,  and  he  could  only  repeat  the  text  over  and  over 
again.  Luther,  who  was  in  the  pulpit  with  him,  at  length 
impatiently  exclaimed,  "  You  are  a  very  good  sheep !  " 
and  telling  him  to  sit  down,  took  the  same  text,  and 
preached  an  excellent  discourse  from  it. 

Coming  down  to  later  times,  and  to  characters  more 
purely  literary,  what  could  more  beautifully  illustrate  the 
harmony  of  opposites,  so  often  observable  in  literature 
and  life,  than  the  intimacy  which  existed  between  Profes- 
sor Wilson  and  Dr.  Blair  ?  The  course  and  habit  of  Dr. 
Blair's  life  "were  like  the  smooth,  deep  water;  serene, 
undisturbed  to  outer  eye  ;  and  the  very  repose  that  was 
about  him  had  a  charm  for  the  restless,  active  energy  of 
his  friend,  who  turned  to  this  gentle  and  meek  nature  for 
mental  rest.  I  have  often  seen  them  sitting  together," 
says  Mrs.  Gordon,  "  in  the  quiet  retirement  of  the  study, 
perfectly  absorbed  in  each  other's  presence,  like  school- 
boys in  the  abandonment  of  their  love  for  each  other,  oc- 
cupying one  seat  between  them,  my  father,  with  his  arm 
lovingly  embracing  'the  dear  doctor's'  shoulders,  play- 
fully pulling  the  somewhat  silvered  locks  to  draw  his  at- 
tention to  something  in  the  tome  spread  out  on  their 
knees,  from  which  they  were  both  reading.      Such  dis- 


TYPES.  311 

cussions  as  they  had  together  hour  upon  hour !  Shake- 
speare, Milton  —  always  the  loftiest  themes  —  never  weary 
in  doing  honor  to  the  great  souls  from  whom  they  had 
learnt  so  much.  Their  voices  were  different,  too :  Dr. 
Blair's  soft  and  sweet  as  that  of  a  woman ;  the  professor's 
sonorous,  sad,  with  a  nervous  tremor :  each  revealing  the 
peculiar  character  of  the  man." 

Godwin  and  Rough  (to  whom  some  of  Lamb's  most 
amusing  letters  were  written)  met  at  a  dinner-party  for  the 
first  time.  The  very  next  day,  it  is  stated,  Godwin  called 
on  a  friend  (a  fellow-guest)  to  say  how  much  he  liked 
Rough,  adding  :  "  By  the  way,  do  you  think  he  would  lend 
me  fifty  pounds  just  now,  as  I  am  in  want  of  a  little  mon- 
ey }  "  He  had  not  left  his  friend  an  hour  before  Rough 
came  with  a  like  question.  He  wanted  a  bill  discounted, 
and  asked  whether  his  friend  thought  Godwin  would  do  it 
for  him.  The  habit  of  both  was  so  well  known  that  some 
persons  were  afraid  to  invite  them,  lest  it  should  lead  to 
an  application  for  a  loan  from  some  acquaintance  who 
chanced  to  be  present. 

Northcote  mentioned  to  Hazlitt  an  instance  of  some 
young  country  people  who  had  to  sleep  on  the  floor  in  the 
same  room,  and  they  parted  the  men  from  the  women  by 
some  sacks  of  corn,  which  served  for  a  line  of  demar- 
cation and  an  inviolable  partition  between  them.  Hazlitt 
spoke  of  a  countrywoman,  who,  coming  to  an  inn  in  the 
west  of  England,  wanted  a  bed ;  and  being  told  they 
had  none  to  spare,  still  persisted,  till  the  landlady  said 
in  a  joke,  "  I  tell  you,  good  woman,  I  have  none,  unless 
you  can  prevail  with  the  ostler  to  give  you  half  of  his." 
"  Well,"  said  she,  "  if  he  is  a  sober,  prudent  man,  I  shall 
not  mind."  The  Princess  Borghese  (Bonaparte's  sister), 
who  was  no  saint,  sat  to  Canova  for  a  model,  and  being 
isked,  "  If  she  did  not  feel  a  little  uncomfortable,"  an- 
swered, "  No,  there  was  a  fire  in  the  room." 

In  the  same  cnaracter  opposite  faculties  and  qualities 


312  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

are  sometimes  so  blended  as  to  give  very  mysterious  re 
suits.  Every  reader  knows  how  difficult  it  often  is  to 
separate  the  irony  and  seriousness  of  Swift  and  De  Foe, 
so  very  nicely  they  run  together.  Pure  imagination  is  so 
realistic  as  to  appear  indubitable  truth.  The  History  of 
the  Plague  is  an  example ;  and  Robinson  Crusoe :  what 
boy  ever  doubted  the  truth  of  the  narrative  ?  or,  while  he 
was  reading  them,  the  adventures  of  Lemuel  Gulliver,  in- 
credible as  they  are  ?  There  is  a  story  of  a  peasant  and 
The  Vicar  of  Wakefield.  The  dull  rustic  was  a  slow 
reader,  and  could  get  through  but  a  few  pages  in  a  long 
evening ;  yet  he  was  absorbed  by  the  story,  and  read  it 
as  if  it  were  a  veritable  history.  A  wag  in  the  family, 
discerning  the  situation,  thought  to  amuse  himself  by  put- 
ting back  the  book-mark  each  morning  nearly  to  the  point 
the  man  had  read  from  the  previous  evening,  so  that  it 
turned  out  he  was  all  winter  getting  through  the  little  vol- 
ume. When  he  had  finished  it,  the  wag  asked  him  his 
opinion  of  it.  He  answered  that  it  was  good,  —  that  he 
had  no  doubt  every  word  of  it  was  true,  — but  it  did  seem 
to  him  there  was  some  repetition  in  it ! 

A  clergyman's  widow  of  eighty,  the  mother  of  the  first 
iMv  David  Dundas  —  at  one  time  commander-in-chief  of 
the  British  army  —  is  thus  described  by  Cockburn :  "  We 
used  to  go  to  her  house  in  Bunker's  Hill,  [Edinburgh] 
when  boys,  on  Sundays,  between  the  morning  and  atter- 
noon  sermons,  where  we  were  cherished  with  Scotch  broth 
and  cakes,  and  many  a  joke  from  the  old  lady.  Age  had 
made  her  incapable  of  walking,  even  across  the  room  ;  so, 
clad  in  a  plain  black-silk  gown,  and  a  pure  muslin  cap, 
she  sat  half-encircled  by  a  high-backed,  black  leather  chair, 
reading,  with  silver  spectacles  stuck  on  her  thin  nose, 
and  interspersing  her  studies  and  her  days  with  much 
laughter,  and  not  a  little  sarcasm.  What  a  spirit !  There 
was  more  tun  and  sense  round  that  chair  than  in  the  thea- 
tre or  the  church.     I  remember  one  of  her  grand-daugh* 


TYPES.  313 

ters  stumbling,  in  the  course  of  reading  the  newspapers 
to  her,  on  a  paragraph  which  stated  that  a  lady's  reputa- 
tion had  suffered  from  some  indiscreet  talk  on  the  part  of 
the  Prince  of  Wales.  Up  she  of  fourscore  sat,  and  said 
with  an  indignant  shake  of  her  shriveled  fist  and  a  keen 
voice,  — '  The  dawmed  villain  !  does  he  kiss  and  tell  ! '  " 

In  the  Barberini  palace  is  the  celebrated  portrait  oi 
Beatrice  Cenci,  by  Guido.  The  melancholy  and  strange 
history  of  this  beautiful  girl  has  been  told  in  a  variety  of 
ways,  and  is  probably  familiar  to  every  reader.  Guido 
saw  her  on  her  way  to  execution,  and  has  painted  her  as 
she  was  dressed,  in  the  gray  habit  and  head-dress,  made 
by  her  own  hands,  and  finished  but  an  hour  before  she 
put  it  on.  "  There  are  engravings  and  copies  of  the  pict- 
ure all  over  the  world,  but  none  that  I  have  seen,"  said 
Willis,  "give  any  idea  of  the  excessive  gentleness,  and 
serenity  of  the  countenance.  The  eyes  retain  traces  of 
weeping,  the  child-like  mouth,  the  soft,  girlish  lines  of 
features  that  look  as  if  they  had  never  worn  more  than 
the  one  expression  of  youthfulness  and  affection,  are  all 
in  repose,  and  the  head  is  turned  over  the  shoulder  with 
as  simple  a  sweetness  as  if  she  had  but  looked  back  to 
say  a  good-night  before  going  to  her  chamber  to  sleep. 
She  little  looks  like  what  she  was  —  one  of  the  firmest 
and  boldest  spirits  whose  history  is  recorded.  After 
murdering  her  father  for  his  fiendish  attempts  upon  her 
virtue,  she  endured  every  torture  rather  than  disgrace  her 
family  by  confession,  and  was  only  moved  from  her  con- 
stancy, at  last,  by  the  agonies  of  her  younger  brother  on 
the  rack.  Who  would  read  capabilities  like  these,  in  those 
heavenly  and  child-like  features  ?  " 

There  is  related  an  incident  of  the  American  civil  war 
which  illustrates  how  ignorance  and  superstition  some- 
•■imes  give  birth  to  eloquence.  An  army  officer  had  been 
speaking  of  the  ideas  of  power  entertained  by  the  poor 
Qegro  slaves.     He  said  they  had  an  idea  of  God,  as  the 


314  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

Almighty,  and  they  had  realized  in  their  former  condition 
the  power  of  their  masters.  Up  to  the  time  of  the  arrival 
among  them  of  the  Union  forces,  they  had  no  knowledge 
of  an)'  other  power.  Their  masters  fled  upon  the  ap- 
proach of  the  federal  soldiers,  and  this  gave  the  negroes 
a  conception  of  a  power  greater  than  that  exercised  by 
them.  This  power  they  called  "  Massa  Linkum."  Their 
place  of  worship  was  a  large  building  which  they  called 
"  the  praise  house  ; "  and  the  leader  of  the  meeting,  a 
venerable  black  man,  was  known  as  "  the  praise  man." 
On  a  certain  day,  when  there  was  quite  a  large  gathering 
of  the  people,  considerable  confusion  was  created  by  dif- 
ferent persons  attempting  to  tell  who  and  what  "  Massa 
Linkum  "  was.  In  the  midst  of  the  excitement  the  white- 
headed  leader  commanded  silence.  "  Brederin,"  said  he, 
"  you  don't  know  nosein'  what  you  're  talkin'  'bout.  Now, 
you  just  listen  to  me.  Massa  Linkum,  he  eberywhar.  He 
know  eberyting."  Then,  solemnly  looking  up,  he  added, 
"  He  walk  de  earf  like  de  Lord  !  " 

Curran,  who  was  so  merry  and  charming  in  conversa- 
tion, was  also  very  melancholy.  He  said  he  never  went 
to  bed  in  Ireland  without  wishing  not  to  rise  again.  It 
seems  to  be  a  law  of  our  nature  that  "  as  high  as  we  have 
mounted  in  delight,  in  our  dejection  do  we  sink  as  low." 
Burns  expresses  it,  *'  Chords  that  vibrate  sweetest  pleas- 
ure, thrill  the  deepest  notes  of  woe  ;  "  and  Hood,  "  There  's 
not  a  string  attuned  to  mirth,  but  has  its  chord  in  melan- 
choly ;  "  and  Burton,  "  Naught  so  sweet  as  melancholy," 
naught  "  so  damned  as  melancholy ;  "  and  King  Solomon. 
"  I  said  of  laughter.  It  is  mad." 

It  is  narrated  that  one  day  Philip  III.,  King  of  Spain, 
was  standing  in  one  of  the  balconies  of  his  palace  observ- 
ing a  young  Spanish  student,  who  was  sitting  in  the  sun 
and  reading  a  book,  while  he  was  bursting  out  into  fits  of 
laughter.  The  farther  the  student  read,  the  more  his 
gayety  increased  until  at  last  he  was  so  violently  excited 


TYPES.  315 

that  he  let  the  book  fall  from  his  hands,  and  rolled  on  the 
ground  in  a  state  of  intense  hilarity.  The  king  turned  to 
his  courtiers  and  said,  "  That  young  man  is  either  mad, 
or  he  is  reading  Don  Quixote."  One  of  the  guards  of 
the  palace  went  to  pick  up  the  book  and  found  that  his 
majesty  had  guessed  rightly.  Yet  Miguel  Cervantes,  ihe 
author  of  this  book  which  is  so  amusing,  had  dragged  on 
the  most  wretched  and  melancholy  existence.  He  was 
groan. ng  and  weeping  while  all  Spain  was  laughing  at  the 
numerous  adventures  of  the  Knight  of  La  Mancha  and 
the  wise  savings  of  Sancho  Panza. 

The  biographer  of  Grimaldi  speaks  of  the  devouring 
melancholy  which  pursued  the  celebrated  clown  whenever 
he  was  off  the  stage,  or  left  to  his  own  resources ;  and  it 
is  well  known  that  Listen,  whose  face  was  sufficient  to  set 
an  audience  in  a  good  humor,  was  a  confirmed  hypochon- 
driac. It  is  said  he  used  to  sit  up  after  midnight  to  read 
Young's  Night  Thoughts,  delighting  in  its  monotonous 
solemnity. 

"The  gravest  nations,"  says  Landor,  "have  been  the 
wittiest ;  and  in  those  nations  some  of  the  gravest  men. 
In  England,  Swift  and  Addison ;  in  Spain,  Cervantes. 
Rabelais  and  La  Fontaine  are  recorded  by  their  country- 
men to  have  been  rdveurs.  Few  men  have  been  graver 
than  Pascal ;  few  have  been  wittier."  Robert  Chambers 
tells  in  one  of  his  essays  of  a  person  residing  near  Lon- 
don, who  could  make  one's  sides  ache  at  any  time  with 
his  comic  songs,  yet  had  so  rueful,  woe-begone  a  face  that 
his  friends  addressed  him  by  the  name  of  Mr.  Dismal. 
Nothing  remains  of  Butler's  private  history  but  the  record 
of  his  miseries  ;  and  Swift,  we  are  told,  was  never  kiown 
to  smile.  Burns  confessed  in  one  of  his  letters  that  his 
design  in  seeking  society  was  to  fly  from  constitutional 
melancholy.  "  Even  in  the  hour  of  social  mirth,"  he  tells 
us,  "  my  gayety  is  the  madness  of  an  intoxicated  criminal 
under  the  hands  of  the  executioner."    The  most  facetious 


3i6  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

of  all  Lamb's  letters  was  written  to  Barton  in  a  fit  of  the 
deepest  melancholy. 

"  The  elaboration  of  hmnor,"  said  Irving,  "  is  often  a 
very  serious  task ;  and  we  have  never  witnessed  a  more 
perfect  picture  of  mental  misery  than  was  once  presented 
to  us  by  a  popular  dramatic  writer  whom  we  found  in  the 
agonies  of  producing  a  farce  which  subsequently  set  the 
theatre  in  a  roar." 

Moliere  was  a  grave  and  silent  man.  There  is  a  story 
told  of  a  lady  of  distinction  who  invited  him  to  meet  a 
party,  thinking  that  he  would  entertain  them  with  his  wit ; 
he  came,  but  throughout  the  evening  scarcely  opened  his 
lips.  At  Pdzdnas  they  used  to  show  a  chair  in  a  barber's 
shop,  where  he  would  sit  for  hours  without  speaking  a 
word. 

Jerrold  was  a  little  ashamed  of  the  immense  success  of 
the  Caudle  Lectures,  many  of  which  were  written  to  dic- 
tation on  a  bed  of  sickness,  racked  by  rheumatism.  As 
social  drolleries  they  set  nations  laughing.  He  took  their 
celebrity  rather  sulkily.  He  did  not  like  to  be  talked  of 
as  a  funny  man.  His  mixture  of  satire  and  kindliness 
reminded  one  of  his  friends  of  those  lanes  near  Beyrout, 
in  which  you  ride  with  the  prickly-pear  bristling  alongside 
of  you,  and  yet  can  pluck  the  grapes  which  force  them- 
selves among  it  from  the  fields. 

There  is  an  account  of  a  singer  and  his  wife  who  were 
to  sing  a  number  of  humorous  couplets  at  a  restaurant  in 
Leipsic.  The  wife  made  her  appearance  there  at  the  ap- 
pointed hour,  but,  owing  to  the  unexplained  absence  of 
her  husband,  she  was  compelled  to  amuse  the  visitors  bv 
singing  couplets  alone.  While  her  droll  performance  was 
eliciting  shouts  of  laughter,  her  husband  hung  himself  in 
the  court-yard  of  the  restaurant. 

Some  one  said  to  Dr.  Johnson  that  it  seemed  strange 
that  he,  who  so  often  delighted  his  company  by  his  lively 
conversation,  should  say  he  was  miserable.   "Alas !  it  is  al' 


TYPES.  317 

outside,"  replied  the  sage;  "I  may  be  cracking  my  joke 
and  cursing  the  sun  :  sun,  how  I  hate  thy  beams  !  "  "  Are 
we  to  think  Pope  was  happy,"  said  he,  on  another  occa- 
sion, "  because  he  says  so  in  his  writings  ?  We  see  in  his 
writings  what  he  wished  the  state  of  his  mind  to  appear. 
Dr.  Young,  who  pined  for  preferment,  talks  with  contempt 
of  it  in  his  writings,  and  affects  to  despise  everything  he 
did  not  despise."  The  author  of  John  Gilpin  said  of 
himself  and  his  humorous  poetry,  "  Strange  as  it  may 
seem,  the  most  ludicrous  lines  I  ever  wrote  have  been 
when  in  the  saddest  mood,  and  but  for  that  saddest  mood, 
perhaps,  would  never  have  been  written  at  all."  Sir  Wal- 
ter Scott,  in  the  height  of  his  ill-fortune,  was  ever  giving 
vent  in  his  diary  or  elsewhere  to  some  whimsical  outburst 
or  humorous  sally,  and  after  an  extra  gay  entry  in  his 
journal  just  before  leaving  his  dingy  Edinburgh  lodgings 
for  Abbotsford,  he  follows  it  up  next  day  with  this  bit  of 
self-portraiture  :  "  Anybody  would  think  from  the  fal-de- 
ral  conclusion  of  my  journal  of  yesterday  that  I  left  town 
in  a  very  good  humor.  But  nature  has  given  me  a  kind 
of  buoyancy  —  I  know  not  what  to  call  it  —  that  mingles 
with  my  deepest  afflictions  and  most  gloomy  hours.  I 
have  a  secret  pride  —  I  fancy  it  will  be  most  truly  termed 
—  which  impels  me  to  mix  with  my  distress  strange 
snatches  of  mirth  which  have  no  mirth  in  them." 

The  Grand  Duke  of  Weimar,  entertaining  an  American 
author  at  his  table,  spoke  of  Poe,  whose  poem  of  The  Ra- 
ven he  had  never  heard  of  until  the  evening  previous. 
*'  The  conception  is  terrible,"  he  said.  "  Of  course  the 
Raven  can  only  symbolize  Despair,  and  he  makes  it  perch 
upon  the  bust  of  Pallas,  as  if  Despair  even  broods  over 
Wisdom." 

The  Chronicle  of  Liineburg,  says  Heine,  "  records  that 
during  the  year  1480  there  were  whistled  and  sung  through- 
out all  Germany  certain  songs,  which  for  sweetness  and 
tenderness  surpassed  any  previously  known  in  German 


3l8  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

realms.  Young  and  old,  and  the  women  in  particular, 
were  quite  bewitched  by  these  ballads,  which  might  be 
heard  the  livelong  day.  But  these  songs,  so  the  chronicle 
goes  on  to  say,  were  composed  by  a  young  priest  who 
was  afflicted  with  leprosy  and  lived  a  forlorn,  solitary  life, 
secluded  from  all  the  world.  You  are  surely  aware,  gentle 
reader,  what  a  horrible  disease  was  leprosy  during  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  how  the  wretched  beings  afflicted  with 
this  incurable  malady  were  driven  out  from  all  society, 
and  from  the  abodes  of  men,  and  were  forbidden  to  ap- 
proach any  human  being.  Living  corpses,  they  wandered 
to  and  fro,  muffled  from  head  to  foot,  a  hood  drawn  over 
the  face,  and  carrying  in  the  hand  a  bell,  the  Lazarus-bell, 
as  it  was  called,  through  which  they  were  to  give  timely 
warning  of  their  approach,  so  that  every  one  could  avoid 
their  path.  The  poor  priest,  whose  fame  as  a  lyric  poet 
the  chronicle  praised  so  highly,  was  such  a  leper ;  and 
while  all  Germany,  shouting  and  jubilant,  sang  and  whis- 
tled his  songs,  he,  a  wretched  outcast,  in  the  desolation 
of  his  misery  sat  sorrowful  and  alone." 

"  There  have  been  times  in  my  life,"  said  Goethe, 
"  when  I  have  fallen  asleep  in  tears ;  but  in  my  dreams 
the  most  charming  forms  have  come  to  console  and  to 
cheer  me." 

After  Scott  began  the  Bride  of  Lammermoor,  he  had 
one  of  his  terrible  seizures  of  cramp,  yet  during  his  tor- 
ment he  dictated  that  fine  novel ;  and  when  he  rose  from 
his  bed,  and  the  published  book  was  placed  in  his  hands, 
*  he  did  not,"  James  Ballantyne  explicitly  assured  Lock 
hart,  "  recollect  one  single  incident,  character,  or  conver- 
sation it  contained." 

Jean  Paul  wrote  a  great  part  of  his  comic  romance 
(Nicholas  Margraf)  in  an  agony  of  heart-break  from  the 
death  of  his  promising  son  Max.  He  could  not,  one  of 
his  biographers  says,  bear  the  sight  of  any  book  his  son 
had   touched ;  and   the  word  philology  (the  science   in 


TYPES.  319 

which  Max  excelled)  went  through  his  heart  like  a  bolt 
of  ice.  He  had  such  wonderful  power  over  himself  as  to 
go  on  with  his  comic  romance  while  his  eyes  continually 
dropped  tears.  He  wept  so  much  in  secret  that  his  eyes 
became  impaired,  and  he  trembled  for  the  total  loss  of 
sight.  Wine,  that  had  previously,  after  long  sustained 
labor,  been  a  cordial  to  him,  he  could  not  bear  to  touch  ; 
and  after  employing  the  morning  in  writing,  he  spent  the 
whole  afternoon  lying  on  the  sofa  in  his  wife's  apartment, 
his  head  supported  by  her  arm. 

Washington  Irving  completed  that  most  extravagantly 
humorous  of  all  his  works  — the  History  of  New  York  — 
while  he  was  suffering  from  the  death  of  his  sweetheart, 
Matilda  Hoffman,  which  nearly  broke  his  heart.  He 
says,  in  a  memorandum  found  amongst  his  private  papers 
after  his  death,  "  She  was  but  about  seventeen  years  old 
when  she  died.  I  cannot  tell  what  a  horrid  state  of 
mind  I  was  in  for  a  long  time.  I  seemed  to  care  for 
nothing  ;  the  world  was  a  blank  to  me.  I  went  into  the 
country,  but  could  not  bear  solitude,  yet  could  not  enjoy 
society.  There  was  a  dismal  horror  continually  in  my 
mind,  that  made  me  fear  to  be  alone.  I  had  often  to  get 
up  in  the  night,  and  seek  the  bedroom  of  my  brother,  as 
if  the  having  a  human  being  by  me  would  relieve  me 

from   the   frightful   gloom   of   my   own   thoughts 

When  I  became  more  calm  and  collected,  I  applied  my- 
self, by  way  of  occupation,  to  the  finishing  of  my  work. 
I  brought  it  to  a  close,  as  well  as  I  could,  and  published 
it ;  but  the  time  and  circumstances  in  which  it  was  pro- 
duced rendered  me  almost  unable  to  look  upon  it  with 
satisfaction.  Still  it  took  with  the  public,  and  gave  me 
celebrity,  as  an  original  work  was  something  remarkable 

and   uncommon    in    America I    seemed   to   drift 

about  without  aim  or  object,  at  the  mercy  of  every 
breeze  ;  my  heart  wanted  anchorage.  I  was  naturally 
susceptible,  and  tried  to  form  other  attachments,  but  ray 


320  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

heart  would  not  hold  on ;  it  would  continually  roam  to 
what  it  had  lost ;  and  whenever  there  was  a  pause  in  the 
hurry  of  novelty  and  excitement,  I  would  sink  into  dis- 
mal dejection.  For  years  I  could  not  talk  on  the  subject 
of  this  hopeless  regret ;  I  could  not  even  mention  her 
name ;  but  her  image  was  continually  before  me,  and  I 
dreamt  of  her  incessantly." 

Heine,  for  several  years  preceding  his  death,  was  a 
miserable  paralytic.  All  that  time,  it  is  stated,  he  lay 
upon  a  pile  of  mattresses,  racked  by  pain  and  exhausted 
by  sleeplessness,  till  his  body  was  reduced  below  all  nat- 
ural dimensions,  and  his  long  beard  fell  over  the  coverlet 
like  swan's  down  or  a  baby's  hair.  The  muscular  debil- 
ity was  such  that  he  had  to  raise  the  eyelid  with  his  hand 
when  he  wished  to  see  the  face  of  any  one  about  him ; 
and  thus  in  darkness,  he  thought,  and  listened,  and  dic- 
tated, preserving  to  the  very  last  his  clearness  of  intellect, 
his  precision  of  diction,  and  his  invincible  humor. 

The  wretchedness  of  poor  Scarron,  at  whose  jests,  bur- 
lesques, and  buffooneries  all  France  was  laughing,  may  be 
guessed  at  from  his  own  description.  His  form,  to  use 
his  own  words,  "  had  become  bent  like  a  Z."  "  My  legs,'' 
he  adds,  "first  made  an  obtuse  angle  with  my  thighs, 
then  a  right  and  at  last  an  acute  angle  ;  my  thighs  made 
another  with  my  body.  My  head  is  bent  upon  my  chest ; 
my  arms  are  contracted  as  well  as  my  legs,  and  my  fin- 
gers as  well  as  my  arms.  I  am,  in  truth,  a  pretty  com- 
plete abridgment  of  human  misery."  His  head  was  too 
big  for  his  diminutive  stature,  one  eye  was  set  deeper 
than  the  other,  and  his  teeth  were  the  color  of  wood.  At 
the  time  of  his  marriage  (to  the  beautiful  and  gifted 
Mademoiselle  d'Aubignd,  afterward  Madame  de  Mainte- 
non,  the  wife  for  thirty  years  of  Louis  XIV. !)  he  could 
only  move  with  freedom  his  hand,  tongue,  and  eyes.  His 
days  were  passed  in  a  chair  with  a  hood,  and  so  com- 
pletely the  abridgment  of  man  he  describes  himself,  that 


TYPES.  321 

his  wife  had  to  kneel  to  look  in  his  face.  He  could  not 
be  moved  without  screaming  from  pain,  nor  sleep  without 
taking  opium.  The  epitaph  which  he  wrote  on  himself  is 
touching  from  its  truth  :  — 

"  Tread  softly  —  make  no  noise 
To  break  his  slumbers  deep  ; 
Poor  Scarron  here  enjoys 

His  first  calm  night  of  sleep." 

Balzac  said  of  him,  "  I  have  often  met  in  antiquity  with 
pain  that  was  wise,  and  with  pain  that  was  eloquent ;  but 
I  never  before  saw  pain  joyous,  nor  found  a  soul  merrily 
cutting  capers  in  a  paralytic  frame."  He  continued  to 
jest  to  the  last ;  and  seeing  the  bystanders  in  tears,  he 
said,  "  I  shall  never,  my  friends,  make  you  weep  as  much 
as  I  have  made  you  laugh." 

Many  of  Hood's  most  humorous  productions  were  dic- 
tated to  his  wife,  while  he  himself  was  in  bed  from  dis- 
tressing and  protracted  sickness.  His  own  family  was 
the  only  one  which  was  not  delighted  with  the  Comic  An- 
nual, so  well  thumbed  in  every  house.  "  We,  ourselves," 
writes  his  son,  "  did  not  enjoy  it  till  the  lapse  of  manj' 
years  had  mercifully  softened  down  some  of  the  sad  rec- 
ollections connected  with  it."  Fun  and  suffering  seemed 
to  be  natural  to  him,  and  to  be  constantly  helping  each 
other.  When  a  boy,  he  drew  the  figure  of  a  demon  with 
the  smoke  of  a  candle  on  the  staircase  ceiling  near  his 
bedroom  door,  to  frighten  his  brother.  Unfortunately  he 
forgot  that  he  had  done  so,  and,  when  he  went  to  bed, 
succeeded  in  terrifying  himself  into  fits  almost  —  while 
his  brother  had  not  observed  the  picture.  Joke  he  would, 
suffering  as  he  might  be.  It  is  recorded  of  him,  that 
upo:.  a  mustard  plaster  being  applied  to  his  attenuated 
feet,  as  he  lay  in  the  direst  extremity,  he  was  heard  fee- 
bly to  remark  that  there  was  "very  little  meat  for  the 
mustard."  But  if  his  wit  was  marvelous,  so  was  his  pa- 
thos —  tender  beyond  comparison.    His  first  child  scarcely 

21 


322  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

survived  its  birth.     "  In  looking  over  some  old  papers, 
says  his  son,  "  I  found  a  few  tiny  curls  of  golden  hair,  as 
soft  as  the  finest  silk,  wrapped  in  a  yellow  and  time-worn 
paper,  inscribed  in  my  father's  handwriting  :  — 

'  Little  eyes  that  scarce  did  see, 

Little  lips  that  never  smiled  ; 

Alas  !  my  little  dear  dead  child, 
Death  is  thy  father,  and  not  me  ; 
I  but  embraced  thee  soon  as  he  ! '  " 

Here  are  a  few  sentences  from  the  long  letters  which 
the  author  of  the  Bridge  of  Sighs  wrote  to  the  children 
of  his  friend.  Dr.  Elliot,  then  residing  at  Sandgate,  al- 
most from  his  death-bed  :  "  My  dear  Jeanie,  —  So  you 
are  at  Sandgate  !  Of  course,  wishing  for  your  old  play 
fellow  to  help  you  to  make  little  puddles  in  the  sand,  and 
swing  on  the  gate.  But  perhaps  there  are  no  sand  and 
gate  at  Sandgate,  which,  in  that  case,  nominally  tells  us  a 

fib I    have   heard  that  you    bathe  in  the    sea, 

which  is  very  refreshing,  but  it  requires  care  ;  for  if  you 
stay  under  water  too  long,  you  may  come  up  a  mermaid, 
who  is  only  half  a  lady,  with  a  fish's  tail — which  she  can 
boil  if  she  likes.  You  had  better  try  this  with  your  doll, 
whether  it  turns  her  into  half  a  '  doll-fin.'  ....  I  hope 
you  like  the  sea.  I  always  did  when  I  was  a  child,  which 
was  about  two  years  ago.  Sometimes  it  makes  such  a 
fizzing  and  foaming,  I  wonder  some  of  our  London  cheats 
do  not  bottle  it  up  and  sell  it  for  ginger-pop.  When  the 
sea  is  too  rough,  if  you  pour  the  sweet  oil  out  of  the 
cruet  all  over  it,   and  wait  for  a  calm,  it  will  be  quite 

smooth  —  much  smoother  than  a  dressed  salad 

Do  you  ever  see  any  boats  or  vessels  ?  And  don't  you 
wish,  when  you  see  a  ship,  that  somebody  was  a  sea-cap- 
tain instead  of  a  doctor,  that  he  might  bring  you  home  a 
pet  lion,  or  calf-elephant,  ever  so  many  parrots,  or  a 
monkey  from  foreign  parts  ?  I  knew  a  little  girl  who  waa 
promised  a  baby-whale  by  her   sailor-brother,  and  who 


TYPES.  323 

blubbered  because  he  did  not  bring  it.  I  suppose  there 
are  no  whales  at  Sandgate,  but  you  might  find  a  seal 
about  the  beach ;  or  at  least  a  stone  for  one.  The  sea- 
stones  are  not  pretty  when  they  are  dry,  but  look  beauti- 
ful when  they  are  wet  —  and  we  can  always  keep  sucking 
fjiem ! "  To  Jeanie's  brother,  among  other  things  he 
ivrites,  "  I  used  to  catch  flat-fish  with  a  very  long  string 
line.  It  was  like  swimming  a  kite.  Once  I  caught  a 
plaice,  and  seeing  it  all  over  red  spots,  thought  I  had 
caught  the  measles."  To  Mary  Elliot,  a  still  more  youth- 
ful correspondent,  he  says,  "  I  remember  that  when  I  saw 
the  sea,  it  used  sometimes  to  be  very  fussy  and  fidgety, 
and  did  not  always  wash  itself  quite  clean  ;  but  it  was 
very  fond  of  fun.  Have  the  waves  ever  run  after  you 
yet,  and  turned  your  little  two  shoes  into  pumps,  full  of 
water  ?  Have  you  been  bathed  yet  in  the  sea,  and  were 
you  afraid  ?  I  was  the  first  time,  and  the  time  before 
that ;  and,  dear  me,  how  I  kicked  and  screamed  —  or,  at 
least,  meant  to  scream ;  but  the  sea,  ships  and  all,  began 
to  run  into  my  mouth,  and  so  I  shut  it  up.  I  think  I  see 
you  being  dipped  into  the  sea,  screwing  your  eyes  up, 
and  putting  your  nose,  like  a  button,  into  your  mouth, 
like  a  button-hole,  for  fear  of  getting  another  smell  and 
taste.  Did  you  ever  try,  like  a  little  crab,  to  run  two 
ways  at  once  ?     See  if  you  can  do  it,  for  it  is  good  fun  ; 

never  mind  tumbling  over  yourself  a  little  at  first 

And  now  good-by ;  Fanny  has  made  my  tea,  and  I  must 
drink  it  before  it  gets  too  hot,  as  we  all  were  last  Sunday 
week.  They  say  the  glass  was  eighty-eight  in  the  shade, 
which  is  a  great  age.  The  last  fair  breeze  I  blew  doz- 
ens of  kisses  for  you,  but  the  wind  changed,  and,  I  am 

afraid,  took  them  all  to  Miss  H ,  or  somebody  that  it 

should  n't." 

You  remember  the  anecdote  Southey  repeats  in  his 
Doctor,  of  a  physician  who,  being  called  in  to  an  un- 
known patient,  found  him  suffering  under  the  deepest  de- 


324  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

pression  of  mind,  without  any  discoverable  disease,  or 
other  assignable  cause.  The  physician  advised  him  to 
seek  for  cheerful  objects,  and  recommended  him  espe- 
cially to  go  to  the  theatre  and  see  a  famous  actor  then  in 
the  meridian  of  his  powers,  whose  comic  talents  were  un- 
rivaled. Alas  !  the  comedian  who  kept  crowded  theatres 
in  a  roar  was  this  poor  hypochondriac  himself  1 


XII. 

CONDUCT. 

Hazlitt,  in  one  of  his  discursive  essays,  says,  **  I 
stopped  these  two  days  at  Bridgewater,  and  when  I  was 
tired  of  sauntering  on  the  banks  of  its  muddy  river,  re- 
turned to  the  inn  and  read  Camilla.  So  have  I  loiteied 
my  life  away,  reading  books,  looking  at  pictures,  going  to 
plays,  hearing,  thinking,  writing  on  what  pleased  me  best. 
I  have  wanted  only  one  thing  to  make  me  happy ;  but 
wanting  that  have  wanted  everything."  Alas  1  who  has 
not  wanted  one  thing?  Fortunatus  had  a  cap,  which 
when  he  put  on,  and  wished  himself  anywhere,  behold  he 
was  there.  Aladdin  had  a  lamp,  which  if  he  rubbed,  and 
desired  anything,  immediately  it  was  his.  If  we  each 
had  both,  there  would  still  be  something  wanting  —  one 
thing  more.  Donatello's  matchless  statue  of  St.  George 
"wanted  one  thing,"  in  the  opinion  of  Michel  Angelo  j 
it  wanted  "  the  gift  of  speech."  The  poor  widow  in  Hol- 
land that  Pepys  tells  us  about  in  his  Diary,  who  survived 
twenty-five  husbands,  wanted  one  thing  more,  no  doubt  — 
perhaps  one  more  husband.  "  Hadst  thou  Samson's  hair, 
Milo's  strength,  Scanderbeg's  arm,  Solomon's  wisdom,  Ab- 
salom's beauty,  Croesus's  wealth,  Caesar's  valor,  Alexan- 
der's spirit,  Tully's  or  Demosthenes's  eloquence,  Gyges's 
ring,  Perseus's  Pegasus,  and  Gorgon's  head,  Nestor's  years 
to  come,  all  this,"  saith  Burton,  "  would  not  make  thee 
absolute,  give  thee  content  and  true  happiness  in  this  life, 
or  so  continue  it."  Proverbially,  we  never  are,  but  always 
to  be,  blest.  "  A  child,"  said  the  good  Sachs,  "  thinks 
the  stars  blossom  on  the  trees;  when  he  climbs  to  the 


326  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

tree-tops,  he  fancies  they  cluster  on  the  spire ;  when  lie 
climbs  the  spire,  he  finds,  to  reach  them,  he  must  leave 
the  eaith  and  go  to  heaven."  There  is  an  old  German 
engraving,  in  the  manner  of  Holbein,  which  represents  an 
aged  man  near  a  grave,  wringing  his  hands.  Death,  be- 
hind, directs  his  attention  to  heaven.  In  the  palace  Sci- 
arra  is  a  very  expressive  picture  by  Schedone.  On  the 
ruins  of  an  old  tomb  stands  a  skull,  beneath  which  is 
written  —  "  I,  too,  was  of  Arcadia ;  "  and,  at  a  little  dis- 
tance, gazing  at  it  in  attitudes  of  earnest  reflection,  stand 
two  shepherds,  struck  simultaneously  with  the  moral. 
What  we  have  is  nothing,  what  we  want,  everything.  "  All 
worldly  things,"  says  Baxter,  "  appear  most  vain  and  un- 
satisfactory, when  we  have  tried  them  most."  The  prize 
we  struggled  for,  which  filled  our  imagination,  when  at- 
tained was  not  much  ;  worthless  in  grasp,  priceless  in  ex- 
pectation. The  one  thing  we  want  is  one  thing  we  have 
not  —  that  we  have  not  had. 

"  I  saw  the  little  boy, 

In  thought  how  oft  that  he 
Did  wish  of  God,  to  scape  the  rod, 
A  tall  young  man  to  be. 

"  The  young  man  eke  that  feels 
His  bones  with  pain  opprest, 
How  he  would  be  a  rich  old  man, 
To  live  and  lie  at  rest : 

"  The  rich  old  man  that  sees 
His  end  draw  on  so  sore, 
How  he  would  be  a  boy  again. 
To  live  so  much  the  more." 

This  hunger,  this  hope,  this  longing,  is  our  best  posses- 
&jon  at  last,  and  fades  not  away,  unsubstantial  as  it  may 
seem.  It  builds  for  each  one  of  us  magnificent  castles. 
"  All  the  years  of  our  youth  and  the  hopes  of  our  man- 
hood are  stored  away,,  like  precious  stones,  in  the  vaults , 
and  we  know  that  we  shall  find  everything  convenient, 


CONDUCT.  327 

elegant,  and  splendid,  when  we  come  into  possession." 
Curtis,  in  one  of  his  exquisite  sketches,  treats  this  ele- 
ment of  us  as  no  other  author  has.  He  calls  it  his  Span- 
ish property.  "  I  am  the  owner,"  he  says,  "  of  great 
estates  ;  but  the  greater  part  are  in  Spain.  It  is  a  country 
famously  romantic,  and  my  castles  are  all  of  perfect  pro- 
portions and  appropriately  set  in  the  most  picturesque 
situations.  I  have  never  been  to  Spain  myself,  but  I 
have,  naturally,  conversed  much  with  travelers  to  that 
country,  although,  I  must  allow,  without  deriving  from 
them  much  substantial  information  about  my  property 
there.  The  wisest  of  them  told  me  that  there  were  more 
holders  of  real  estate  in  Spain  than  in  any  other  region 
he  had  ever  heard  of,  and  they  are  all  great  proprietors. 
Every  one  of  them  possesses  a  multitude  of  the  stateliest 
castles.  From  conversation  with  them  you  easily  gather 
that  each  one  considers  his  own  castles  much  the  largest 

and  in  the  loveliest  positions It  is  remarkable  that 

none  of  the  proprietors  have  ever  been  to  Spain  to  take 
possession  and  report  to  the  rest  of  us  the  state  of  our 
property  there.  I,  of  course,  cannot  go,  I  am  too  much 
engaged.  So  is  Titbottom.  And  I  find  that  it  is  the  case 
with  all  the  proprietors.  We  have  so  much  to  detain  us 
at  home  that  we  cannot  get  away.     It  is  always  so  with 

rich  men It  is  not  easy  for  me  to  say  how  I  know 

so  much  as  I  certainly  do  about  my  castles  in  Spain.  The 
sun  always  shines  upon  them.  They  stand  large  and 
fair  in  a  luminous,  golden  atmosphere,  a  little  hazy  and 
dreamy,  perhaps,  like  the  Indian  summer,  but  in  which  no 
gales  blow  and  there  are  no  tempests.  All  the  sublime 
mountains,  and  beautiful  valleys,  and  soft  landscapes,  that 
I  have  not  yet  seen,  are  to  be  found  in  the  grounds. 
They  command  a  noble  view  of  the  Alps ;  so  fine,  indeed, 
that  I  should  be  quite  content  with  the  prospect  of  them 
from  the  highest  tower  of  my  castle,  and  not  care  to  go 
to  Switzerland.     The  neighboring  ruins,  too,  are  as  pict- 


328  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

uresque  as  those  of  Italy,  and  my  desire  of  standing  in 
the  Coliseum  and  of  seeing  the  shattered  arches  of  the 
aqueducts,  stretching  along  the  Campagna,  and  melting 
into  the  Alban  Mount,  is  entirely  quenched.  The  rich 
gloom  of  my  orange  groves  is  gilded  by  fruit  as  brilliant 
of  complexion  and  exquisite  of  flavor  as  any  that  ever 
dark-eyed  Sorrento  girls,  looking  over  the  high  plastered 
walls  of  Southern  Italy,  hand  to  the  youthful  travelers, 
climbing  on  donkeys  up  the  narrow  lane  beneath.  The 
Nile  flows  through  my  grounds.  The  Desert  lies  upon 
their  edge,  and  Damascus  stands  in  my  garden.  I  am 
given  to  understand,  also,  that  the  Parthenon  has  been 
removed  to  my  Spanish  possessions.  The  Golden  Horn 
is  my  fish  preserve  ;  my  flocks  of  golden  fleece  are  past- 
ured on  the  plain  of  Marathon,  and  the  honey  of  Hy- 
mettus  is  distilled  from  the  flowers  that  grow  in  the  vale 
of  Enna  —  all  in  my  Spanish  domains.  From  the  win- 
dows of  these  castles  look  the  beautiful  women  whom  I 
have  never  seen,  whose  portraits  the  poets  have  painted. 
They  wait  for  me  there,  and  chiefly  the  fair-haired  child, 
lost  to  my  eye  so  long  ago,  now  bloomed  into  an  impossi- 
ble beauty.  The  lights  that  never  shone  glance  at  even- 
ing in  the  vaulted  halls,  upon  banquets  that  were  never 
spread.  The  bands  I  have  never  collected  play  all  night 
long,  and  enchant  the  brilliant  company,  that  was  never 
assembled,  into  silence.  In  the  long  summer  mornings 
the  children  that  I  never  had,  play  in  the  gardens  that  I 

never  planted I  have  often  wondered  how  I  shall 

ever  reach  my  castles.  The  desire  of  going  comes  over 
me  very  strongly  sometimes,  and  I  endeavor  to  see  how  I 
can  arrange  my  affairs  so  as  to  get  away.  To  tell  the 
truth,  I  am  not  quite  sure  of  the  route,  —  I  mean,  to  that 
particular  part  of  Spain  in  which  my  estates  lie.  I  have 
mquired  very  particularly,  but  nobody  seems  to  know  pre- 
cisely  Will    you  tell  me  what  you  consider  the 

shortest  and  safest  route  thither,  Mr.  Bourne  ?    for,  of 


CONDUCT.  329 

course,  a  man  who  drives  such  an  immense  trade  with  ali 
parts  of  the  world  will  know  all  that  I  have  come  to  in- 
quire.' '  My  dear  sir,'  answered  he,  wearily,  '  I  have  been 
trying  all  my  life  to  discover  it ;  but  none  of  my  ships 
have  ever  been  there  —  none  of  my  captains  have  any 
report  to  make.  They  bring  me,  as  they  brought  my 
father,  gold-dust  from  Guinea  ;  ivory,  pearls,  and  precious 
stones  from  every  part  of  the  earth  ;  but  not  a  fruit,  not  a 
solitary  flower,  from  one  of  my  castles  in  Spain,  I  have 
sent  clerks,  agents,  and  travelers  of  all  kinds  ;  philoso- 
phers, pleasure-hunters,  and  invalids,  in  all  sorts  of  ships, 
to  all  sorts  of  places,  but  none  of  them  ever  saw  or  heard 
of  my  castles,  except  one  young  poet,  and  he  died  in  a 
mad-house.'  ....  At  length  I  resolved  to  ask  Titbottom 
if  he  had  ever  heard  of  the  best  route  to  our  estates.  He 
said  that  he  owned  castles,  and  sometimes  there  was  an 

expression  in  his  face  as  if  he  saw  them 'I  have 

never  known  but  two  men  who  reached  their  estates  in 
Spain.'  '  Indeed,'  said  I,  '  how  did  they  go  ? '  *  One  went 
over  the  side  of  a  ship,  and  the  other  out  of  a  third  story 
window,'  answered  Titbottom.  '  And  I  know  one  man 
that  resides  upon  his  estates  constantly,'  continued  he. 
*  Who  is  that  ? '  '  Our  old  friend  Slug,  whom  you  may  see 
any  day  at  the  asylum,  just  coming  in  from  the  hunt,  or 
going  to  call  upon  his  friend  the  Grand  Lama,  or  dressing 
for  the  wedding  of  the  Man  in  the  Moon,  or  receiving  an 
embassador  from  Timbuctoo.  Whenever  I  go  to  see  him, 
Slug  insists  that  I  am  the  pope,  disguised  as  a  journey- 
man carpenter,  and  he  entertains  me  in  the  most  distin- 
guished manner.  He  always  insists  upon  kissing  my  foot, 
and  I  bestow  upon  him,  kneeling,  the  apostolic  benedic- 
tion. This  is  the  only  Spanish  proprietor  in  posses- 
sion, with  whom  I  am  acquainted.'  ....  Ah  I  if  the  true 
histor)'  of  Spain  could  be  written,  what  a  book  were 
there  1 " 


330  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

"  Gayly  bedight, 
A  gallant  knight, 
In  sunshine  and  in  shadow 
Had  journeyed  long, 
Singing  a  song, 
In  search  of  Eldorado. 

"  But  he  grew  old, 

This  knight  so  bold, 
And  o'er  his  heart  a  shadow 

Fell  as  he  found 

No  spot  of  ground 
That  looked  like  Eldorado. 

"  And  as  his  strength 
Failed  him  at  length. 
He  met  a  pilgrim  shadow  : 
'  Shadow,'  said  he, 
'  Where  can  it  be  — 
This  land  of  Eldorado  ? ' 

"  '  Over  the  Mountains 

Of  the  Moon, 
Down  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow, 

Ride,  boldly  ride. 

The  shade  replied, 
'  If  you  seek  for  Eldorado  ! '  " 

Steele,  in  a  paper  of  The  Spectator,  dilates  in  this 
vein.  "  I  am,"  he  says,  "  one  of  that  species  of  men 
who  are  properly  denominated  castle-builders,  who  scorn 
to  be  beholden  to  the  earth  for  a  foundation,  or  dig  in 
the  bowels  of  it  for  materials ;  but  erect  their  structures 
in  the  most  unstable  of  elements,  the  air ;  fancy  alone 
laying  the  line,  marking  the  extent,  and  shaping  the 
model  It  would  be  difficult  to  enumerate  what  august 
palaces  and  stately  porticoes  have  grown  under  my  form- 
ing imagination,  or  what  verdant  meadows  and  shady 
groves  have  started  into  being  by  the  powerful  feat  of  a 
warm  fancy.  A  castle-builder  is  ever  just  what  he  pleases, 
and  as  such  I  have  grasped  imaginary  sceptres,  and  de« 


CONDUCT.  33f 

iivered  uncontrollable  edicts,  from  a  throne  to  which  con- 
quered nations  yielded  obeisance.  There  is  no  art  or 
profession,  whose  most  celebrated  masters  I  have  not 
eclipsed.  Wherever  I  have  afforded  my  salutary  pres- 
ence, fevers  have  ceased  to  burn  and  agues  to  shake  the 
human  fabric.  When  an  eloquent  fit  has  been  upon  me, 
an  apt  gesture  and  proper  cadence  has  animated  each 
sentence,  and  gazing  crowds  have  found  their  passions 
worked  up  into  a  rage,  or  soothed  into  a  calm.  I  am 
short,  and  not  very  well  made ;  yet  upon  sight  of  a  fine 
woman,  I  have  stretched  into  proper  stature,  and  killed 
with  a  good  air  and  mien.  These  are  the  gay  phantoms 
that  dance  before  my  waking  eyes,  and  compose  my  day- 
dreams. I  should  be  the  most  contented  happy  man 
alive,  were  the  chimerical  happiness  which  springs  from 
the  paintings  of  fancy  less  fleeting  and  transitory.  But 
alas !  it  is  with  grief  of  mind  I  tell  you,  the  least  breath 
of  wind  has  often  demolished  my  magnificent  edifices, 
swept  away  my  groves,  and  left  no  more  trace  of  them 
than  if  they  had  never  been.  My  exchequer  has  sunk 
and  vanished  by  a  rap  on  my  door,  the  salutation  of  a 
friend  has  cost  me  a  whole  continent,  and  in  the  same 
moment  I  have  been  pulled  by  the  sleeve,  my  crown  has 
fallen  from  my  head.  The  ill  consequence  of  these  rev- 
eries is  inconceivably  great,  seeing  the  loss  of  imaginary 
possessions  makes  impressions  of  real  woe.  Besides,  bad 
economy  is  visible  and  apparent  in  builders  of  invisible 
mansions.  My  tenants'  advertisements  of  ruins  and  di- 
lapidations often  cast  a  damp  on  my  spirits,  even  in  the 
instant  when  the  sun,  in  all  his  splendor,  gilds  my  East- 
ern palaces." 

"Alas  !  "  cries  Heine,  in  his  Confessions,  "  fame,  once 
sweet  as  sugared  pine-apple  and  flattery,  has  for  a  long 
time  been  nauseous  to  me  ;  it  tastes  as  bitter  to  me  now 
as  wormwood.  With  Romeo  I  can  say,  '  I  am  the  fool  of 
fortune.'     The  bowl  stands  full  before  me,  but  I  lack  the 


332  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

spoon.  What  does  it  avail  me  that  at  banquets  my 
health  is  pledged  in  the  choicest  wines,  drunk  from 
golden  goblets,  if  at  the  same  time  I,  with  all  that  makes 
life  pleasant  denied  to  me,  may  only  wet  my  lips  v/ith  an 
insipid,  disagreeable,  medicinal  drink  ?  What  benefit  is 
it  to  me  that  enthusiastic  youths  and  maidens  crown  my 
marble  bust  with  laurel  wreaths,  if  meanwhile  the  shriv- 
eled fingers  of  an  aged  hired  nurse  press  a  blister  of 
Spanish  flies  to  the  back  of  my  head?  What  does  it 
avail  me  that  all  the  roses  of  Sharon  tenderly  glow  and 
bloom  for  me  ?  Alas  !  Sharon  is  two  thousand  miles 
away  from  the  Rue  d'Amsterdam,  where  I  in  the  dreary 
solitude  of  my  sick-room  have  nothing  to  smell,  unless  it 
be  the  perfume  of  warmed-over  poultices." 

"  When  I  look  around  me,"  said  Goethe,  "  and  see 
how  few  of  the  companions  of  earlier  years  are  left  to 
me,  I  think  of  a  summer  residence  at  a  bathing-place. 
When  you  arrive,  you  first  become  acquainted  with  those 
who  have  already  been  there  some  weeks,  and  who  leave 
you  in  a  few  days.  This  separation  is  painful.  Then 
you  turn  to  the  second  generation,  with  which  you  live  a 
good  while,  and  become  really  intimate.  But  this  goes 
also,  and  leaves  us  lonely  with  the  third,  which  comes  just 
as  we  are  going  away,  and  with  which  we  have,  properly, 

nothing  to  do I  have  ever  been  considered  one 

of  Fortune's  chiefest  favorites ;  nor  can  I  complain  of 
the  course  my  life  has  taken.  Yet,  truly,  there  has  been 
nothing  but  toil  and  care  ;  and  in  my  seventy-fifth  year, 
T  may  say  that  I  have  never  had  four  weeks  of  genuine 
pleasure.     The  stone  was  ever  to  be  rolled  up  anew." 

"What  a  multitude  of  past  friends  can  I  number 
amongst  the  dead  !  "  exclaimed  another  venerable  worthy 
in  literature.  "  It  is  the  melancholy  consequence  of  old 
age;  if  we  outlive  our  feelings  we  are  nothing  worth  ;  if 
they  remain  in  force,  a  thousand  sad  occurrences  remind 
us  that  we  live  too  long."     It  was  Sir  William  Temple's 


CONDUCT.  333 

opinion  that  "  life  is  like  wine  ;  who  would  drink  it  pure 
must  not  draw  it  to  the  dregs."  Dr.  Sherlock  thought 
"  the  greatest  part  of  mankind  have  great  reason  to  be 
contented  with  the  shortness  of  life,  because  they  have 
no  temptation  to  wish  it  longer."  De  Tocqueville  said, 
"  Man  is  a  traveler  toward  a  colder  and  colder  region, 
and  the  higher  his  latitude,  the  faster  ought  to  be  his 
walk.  The  great  malady  of  the  soul  is  cold.  It  must  be 
combated  by  activity  and  exertion,  by  contact  with  one's 
fellow-creatures,  and  with  the  business  of  the  world.  In 
these  days  one  must  not  live  upon  what  one  has  already 
learnt,  one  must  learn  more  ;  and  instead  of  sleeping 
away  our  acquired  ideas,  we  should  seek  for  fresh  ones, 
make  the  new  opinions  fight  with  the  old  ones,  and  those 
of  youth  with  those  of  an  altered  state  of  thought  and  of 
society." 

The  following  authentic  memorial  was  found  in  the 
closet  of  Abdalrahman,  who  established  the  throne  of 
Cordova,  and  who,  during  his  life,  enjoyed  thousands  of 
wives,  millions  upon  millions  of  wealth,  and  was  the 
object  of  universal  admiration  and  envy  :  "  I  have  now 
reigned  above  fifty  years  in  victory  or  peace ;  beloved  by 
my  subjects,  dreaded  by  my  enemies,  and  respected  by 
my  allies.  Riches  and  honor,  power  and  pleasure,  have 
waited  on  my  call,  nor  does  any  earthly  blessing  appear 
to  have  been  wanting  to  my  felicity.  In  this  situation  I 
have  diligently  numbered  the  days  of  pure  and  genuine 
happiness  which  have  fallen  to  my  lot :  they  amount  to 
fourteen.  O  man,  place  not  thy  confidence  in  this  pres- 
ent world  !  " 

Voltaire  makes  Candide  sit  down  to  supper  at  Venice 
with  six  strangers  who  were  staying  at  the  same  hotel 
with  himself,  and  as  the  servants,  to  his  astonishment, 
addressed  each  of  them  by  the  title  of  "  your  majesty," 
he  asked  for  an  explanation  of  the  pleasantry.  "  I  am 
not  jesting,"  said  the  first,   "I  am  Achmetlll. ;  I  was 


334  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

sultan  several  years  ;  I  dethroned  my  brother,  and  my 
nephew  dethroned  me.  They  have  cut  oflE  the  heads  of 
my  viziers  ;  I  shall  pass  the  remainder  of  my  days  in  the 
old  seraglio  ;  my  nephew,  the  Sultan  Mahmoud,  some- 
times permits  me  to  travel  for  my  health,  and  I  have 
come  to  pass  the  Carnival  at  Venice."  A  young  man 
who  was  close  to  Achmet  spoke  next,  and  said,  "  My 
name  is  Ivan  ;  I  have  been  Emperor  of  all  the  Russias  ; 
I  wa5  dethroned  when  I  was  in  my  cradle  ;  my  father  and 
my  mother  have  been  incarcerated  ;  I  was  brought  up  in 
prison  ;  I  have  sometimes  permission  to  travel  attended 
by  my  keepers,  and  I  have  come  to  pass  the  Carnival  at 
Venice,"  The  third  said,  "  I  am  Charles  Edward,  King 
of  England  ;  my  father  has  surrendered  his  rights  to  me  ; 
I  have  fought  to  sustain  them  ;  my  vanquishers  have  torn 
out  the  hearts  of  eight  hundred  of  my  partisans ;  I  have 
been  put  into  prison ;  I  am  going  to  Rome  to  pay  a  visit 
to  my  father,  dethroned  like  my  grandfather  and  myself, 
and  I  have  come  to  pass  the  Carnival  at  Venice."  The 
fourth  then  spoke,  and  said,  "  I  am  King  of  Poland ;  the 
fortune  of  war  has  deprived  me  of  my  hereditary  states  ; 
my  father  experienced  the  same  reverses  ;  I  resign  myself 
to  the  will  of  Providence,  like  the  Sultan  Achmet,  the 
Emperor  Ivan,  and  the  King  Charles  Edward,  to  whom 
God  grant  a  long  life  ;  and  I  have  come  to  pass  the  Car- 
nival at  Venice."  The  fifth  said,  "  I  am  also  King  of 
Poland ;  I  have  lost  my  kingdom  twice,  but  Providence 
has  given  me  another  in  which  I  have  done  more  good 
than  all  the  kings  of  Sarmatia  put  together  have  ever 
done  on  the  banks  of  the  Vistula.  I  also  resign  myself 
to  the  will  of  Providence,  and  I  have  come  to  pass  the 
Carnival  at  Venice."  There  remained  a  sixth  monarch  to 
speak.  "  Gentlemen,"  he  said,  "  I  am  not  as  great  a 
sovereign  as  the  rest,  but  I,  too,  have  been  a  king,  I  am 
Theodore,  who  was  elected  King  of  Corsica ;  I  was  called 
'your  majesty,'  and  at  present  am  hardly  called  'sir;'  J 


CONDUCT.  335 

have  caused  money  to  be  coined,  and  do  not  now  pos- 
sess a  penny  ;  I  have  had  two  secretaries  of  state,  and 
have  now  scarcely  a  servant  ;  I  have  sat  upon  a  throne, 
and  was  long  in  a  prison  in  London,  upon  straw,  and  am 
afraid  of  being  treated  in  the  same  manner  here,  although 
I  have  come,  like  your  majesties,  to  pass  the  Carnival  at 
Venice."  The  other  five  kings  heard  this  confession  with 
a  noble  compassion.  Each  of  them  gave  King  Theodore 
twenty  sequins  to  buy  some  clothes  and  shirts.  Can- 
dide  presented  him  with  a  diamond  worth  two  thousand 
sequins.  "  Who,"  said  the  five  kings,  "  is  this  man  who 
can  afford  to  give  a  hundred  times  as  much  as  any  of  us  ? 
Are  you,  sir,  also  a  king  ?  "  "  No,  your  majesties,  and  I 
have  no  desire  to  be." 

Bacon's  contemporary  and  cousin,  Sir  Robert  Cecil, 
who  was  principal  secretary  of  state  to  Queen  Elizabeth 
and  James  I.,  and  ultimately  lord  high  treasurer,  when  he 
was  acknowledged  to  be  the  ablest,  as  he  appeared  the 
most  enviable,  statesman  of  his  time,  wrote  to  a  friend, 
*  Give  heed  to  one  that  hath  sorrowed  in  the  bright  lustre 
of  a  court  and  gone  heavily  over  the  best  seeming  fair 
ground.     It  is  a  great  task  to  prove  one's  honesty,  and 

yet  not  spoil  one's  fortune I  am  pushed  from  the 

shore  of  comfort,  and  know  not  where  the  winds  and 
waves  of  a  court  will  bear  me ;  I  know  it  bringeth  little 
comfort  on  earth  ;  and  he  is,  I  reckon,  no  wise  man  that 
looketh  this  way  to  heaven."  Bacon  himself  says,  in  one 
of  his  Essays,  "  Certainly  great  persons  have  need  to  bor- 
row other  men's  opinions  to  think  themselves  happy  ;  for 
if  they  judge  by  their  own  feeling  they  cannot  find  it ;  but 
if  they  think  with  themselves  what  others  think  of  them, 
and  that  other  men  would  fain  be  as  they  are,  then  they 
are  happy  as  it  were  by  report,  when,  perhaps,  they  find 
the  contrary  within  ;  for  they  are  the  first  that  find  their 
own  griefs,  though  they  be  the  last  that  find  their  own 
faults." 


336  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

Madame  de  Stael,  surrounded  by  the  most  brilliant 
men  of  genius,  beloved  by  a  host  of  faithful  and  devoted 
friends,  the  centre  of  a  circle  of  unsurpassed  attractions, 
was  yet  doomed  to  mourn  "the  solitude  of  life."  A 
short  time  before  her  death,  she  said  to  Chateaubriand, 
"  I  am  now  what  I  have  always  been  —  lively  and  sad." 

The  illustrious  Madame  Rdcamier,  "  after  forty  years  of 
unchallenged  queenship  in  French  society,  constantly  en- 
veloped in  an  intoxicating  Incense  of  admiration  and  love 
won  not  less  by  her  goodness  and  purity  than  by  her 
beauty  and  grace,"  writes  thus  from  Dieppe  to  her  niece  : 
"  I  am  here  in  the  centre  of  fetes,  princesses,  illumina- 
tions, spectacles.  Two  of  my  windows  face  the  ball-room, 
the  other  two  front  the  theatre.  Amidst  this  clatter  I  am 
in  a  perfect  solitude.  I  sit  and  muse  on  the  shore  of  the 
ocean.  I  go  over  all  the  sad  and  joyous  circumstances 
of  my  life.  I  hope  you  will  be  more  happy  than  I  have 
been." 

Madame  de  Pompadour,  recalling  her  follies,  serious 
matters  they  were  to  her,  said  to  the  Prince  de  Soubise, 
"  It  is  like  reading  a  strange  book  ;  my  life  is  an  improb- 
able romance  ;  I  do  not  believe  it."  "  Gray  hairs  had 
come  on  like  daylight  streaming  in,  —  daylight  and  a  head- 
ache with  it.  Pleasure  had  gone  to  bed  with  the  rouge  on 
her  cheeks." 

"Ah  !  "  wrote  also  Madame  de  Maintenon  to  her  niece, 
alas  that  I  cannot  give  you  my  experience  ;  that  I  could 
I  nly  show  you  the  weariness  of  soul  by  which  the  great 
are  devoured, —  the  difficulty  which  they  find  in  getting 
through  their  days  !  Do  you  not  see  how  they  die  of  sad- 
ness in  the  midst  of  that  fortune  which  has  been  a  burden 
to  them  ?  I  have  been  young  and  beautiful ;  I  have  tasted 
many  pleasures  ;  I  have  been  universally  beloved.  At  a 
more  advanced  age,  I  have  passed  years  in  the  intercourse 
of  talent  and  wit.  and  I  solemnly  protest  to  you  that  all 
conditions  leave  a  frightful  void." 


CONDUCT.  337 

Coleridge  sums  up  all  more  wisely.  "  I  have  known," 
he  says,  "what  the  enjoyments  and  advantages  of  this 
life  are,  and  what  the  more  refined  pleasures  which  learn- 
ing and  intellectual  power  can  bestow ;  and  with  all  the 
experience  that  more  than  threescore  years  can  give,  I 
now,  on  the  eve  of  my  departure,  declare  to  you  that 
health  is  a  great  blessing, — competence  obtained  by  hon- 
orable industry  a  great  blessing,  —  and  a  great  blessing 
it  is  to  have  kind,  faithful,  and  loving  friends  and  rela- 
tives ;  but  that  the  greatest  of  all  blessings,  as  it  is  the 
most  ennobling  of  all  privileges,  is  to  be  indeed  a  Chris- 
tian." 

"We  are  born  and  we  live  so  unhappily  that  the  accom- 
plishment of  a  desire  appears  to  us  a  falsehood,  the  reali- 
zation of  hope  a  deception,  as  if  our  sad  experience  had 
taught  us  the  bitter  lesson  that  in  the  world  nothing  is 
true  but  sorrow."  "Who  ordered  toil,"  says  Thackeray, 
"  as  the  condition  of  life,  ordered  weariness,  ordered  sick- 
ness, ordered  poverty,  failure,  success,  —  to  this  man  a 
foremost  place,  to  the  other  a  nameless  struggle  with  the 
crowd ;  to  that  a  shameful  fall,  or  paralyzed  limb,  or  sud- 
den accident ;  to  each  some  work  upon  the  ground  he 
stands  on,  until  he  is  laid  beneath  it."  "  Nature,"  says 
Pliny,  "  makes  us  buy  her  presents  at  the  price  of  so  many 
sufferings,  that  it  is  dubious  whether  she  deserves  most 
the  name  of  a  parent  or  a  step-mother."  "  Solomon  and 
Job  judged  the  best  and  spake  the  truest,"  thought  Pas- 
cal, "of  human  misery  ;  the  former  the  most  happy,  the 
latter  the  most  unfortunate  of  mankind ;  the  one  ac- 
quainted by  long  experience  with  the  vanity  of  pleasure, 
the  other  with  the  reality  of  affliction  and  pain." 

"  We  must  patiently  suffer,"  says  Montaigne,  "  the  laws 
of  our  condition  ;  we  are  born  to  grow  old,  to  grow  weak, 
und  to  be  sick,  in  spite  of  all  physic.  'T  is  the  first  lesson 
the  Mexicans  teach  their  children;  so  soon  as  ever  they 
are  born,  they  thus  salute  them :    '  Child,  thou  art  come 

22 


338  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

into  the  world  to  endure,  suflFer,  and  say  nothing.'  "  "  Half 
the  miseries  of  human  life,"  thought  Hazlitt,  "  proceed 
from  our  not  perceiving  the  incompatibility  of  different 
attainments,  and  consequently  aiming  at  too  much.  We 
make  ourselves  wretched  in  vainly  aspiring  after  advan- 
tages we  are  deprived  of ;  and  do  not  consider  that  it  we 
had  these  advantages  it  would  be  quite  impossible  for  .is 
to  retain  those  which  we  actually  do  possess,  and  which, 
after  all,  if  it  were  put  to  the  question,  we  would  not  con- 
sent to  part  with  for  the  sake  of  any  others."  "  Men  of 
true  wisdom  and  goodness,"  says  Fielding,  "  are  contented 
to  take  persons  and  things  as  they  are,  without  complain- 
ing of  their  imperfections,  or  attempting  to  amend  them  ; 
they  can  see  a  fault  in  a  friend,  or  relation,  or  an  acquaint- 
ance, without  ever  mentioning  it  to  the  parties  themselves 
or  to  any  others  ;  and  this  often  without  lessening  their 
affection :  indeed,  unless  great  discernment  be  tempered 
with  this  overlooking  disposition,  we  ought  never  to  con- 
tract friendships  but  with  a  degree  of  folly  which  we  can 
deceive ;  for  I  hope  my  friends  will  pardon  me  when  I 
declare,  I  know  none  of  them  without  a  fault;  and  I 
should  be  sorry  if  I  could  imagine  I  had  any  friends  who 
could  not  see  mine.  Forgiveness  of  this  kind  we  give 
and  demand  in  turn  :  it  is  an  exercise  of  friendship,  and 
perhaps  none  of  the  least  pleasant,  and  this  forgiveness 
we  must  bestow  without  desire  of  amendment.  There  is, 
perhaps,  no  surer  mark  of  folly,  than  an  attempt  to  cor- 
rect the  natural  infirmities  of  those  we  love  :  the  finest 
composition  of  human  nature,  as  well  as  the  finest  china, 
may  have  a  flaw  in  it ;  and  this,  I  am  afraid,  in  either  case, 
is  equally  incurable,  though  nevertheless  the  pattern  may 
remain  of  the  highest  value."  "  In  short,"  says  Bulwer, 
*'  I  suspect  that  every  really  skilled  man  of  the  world  — ■ 
as  the  world  exists  for  its  citizens  in  this  nineteenth  cent- 
ury—  who,  at  the  ripe  age  of  forty,  looks  from  the  win- 
dow of  his  club  on  the  e very-day  mortals  whom  Fourier 


CONDUCT.  339 

has  hitherto  failed  to  reform,  has  convinced  him  that, 
considering  all  the  mistakes  in  our  education  and  rearing, 
—  all  the  temptations  to  which  flesh  and  blood  are  ex- 
posed—  all  the  trials  which  poverty  inflicts  on  the  poor — 
all  the  seductions  which  wealth  whispers  to  the  rich, — 
men,  on  the  whole,  are  rather  good  than  otherwise,  and 
women,  on  the  whole,  are  rather  better  than  the  men." 

"Let  a  man  examine  his  own  thoughts,"  says  Pascal, 
"  and  he  will  always  find  them  employed  about  the  time 
past  or  to  come.  We  scarce  bestow  a  glance  upon  the 
present ;  or,  if  we  do,  't  is  only  to  borrow  light  from  hence 
to  manage  and  direct  the  future.  The  present  is  never 
the  mark  of  our  designs.  We  use  both  past  and  present 
as  our  means  and  instruments,  but  the  future  only  as  our 
object  and  aim.  Thus  we  never  live,  but  we  ever  hope 
to  live  ;  and  under  this  continual  disposition  and  prepa- 
ration to  happiness,  't  is  certain  we  can  never  be  actually 
happy,  if  our  hopes  are  terminated  with  the  scene  of  this 
life." 

The  Thracians,  according  to  Pliny,  estimated  their 
lives  mathematically,  making  careful  study  and  count  of 
each  day  before  any  event  of  it  was  forgotten.  "  Every 
day  they  put  into  an  urn  either  a  black  or  a  white  pebble, 
to  denote  the  good  or  bad  fortune  of  that  day ;  at  last 
they  separated  these  pebbles,  and  upon  comparing  the 
*wo  numbers  together,  they  formed  their  judgment  of  the 
whole  of  their  lives."  But  time,  past  or  present,  —  time, 
what  is  it?  "Who  can  readily  and  briefly  explain  this?" 
inquired  St.  Augustine.  "  Who  can  even  in  thought  com- 
prehend it,  so  as  to  utter  a  word  about  it  ?  But  what  in 
discourse  do  we  mention  more  familiarly  and  knowingly, 
than  time  ?  And  we  understand,  when  we  speak  of  it ; 
we  understand,  also,  when  we  hear  it  spoken  of  by  an- 
other. What  then  is  time  ?  If  no  one  asks  me,  I  know ; 
if  I  explain  it  to  one  that  asketh,  I  know  not ;  yet  I  say 
boldly,  that  I  know  that  if  nothing  passed  away,  time 


340  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

passed  were  not ;  and  if  nothing  were  coming,  a  time  to 
come  were  not ;  and  if  nothing  were,  time  present  were 
not.  Those  two  times  then,  past  and  to  come,  how  are 
they,  seeing  the  past  now  is  not,  and  that  to  come  is  not 
yet  ?  But  the  present,  should  it  always  be  present,  and 
never  pass  into  time  past,  verily  it  should  not  be  time, 
but  eternity.  If,  therefore,  time  present,  in  order  to  be 
time  at  all,  comes  into  existence  only  because  it  passes 
into  time  past,  how  can  we  say  that  that  is  in  existence, 
whose  cause  of  being  is  that  it  shall  not  be  ?  How  is  it 
that  we  cannot  truly  say  that  time  is,  but  because  it  is 
tending  not  to  be  ?  "  Comprehend  this,  and  you  see  how 
easy  a  thing  it  was  for  the  Thracians  to  "  form  a  judg- 
ment of  .the  whole  of  their  lives" — to  strike  a  nice  bal- 
ance between  their  happiness  and  their  misery. 

But  happiness  is  as  illusive  as  time,  and  is  proved  as 
perspicuously  to  be  but  a  thing  of  memory,  by  the  same 
venerable  saint.  "  Where,  then,  and  when,"  he  says  in 
his  famous  Confessions,  "  did  I  experience  my  happy 
life,  that  I  should  remember  and  love  and  long  for  it  ? 
Nor  is  it  I  alone,  or  some  few  besides,  but  we  all  would 
fain  be  happy ;  which,  unless  by  some  certain  knowledge 
we  knew,  we  should  not  with  so  certain  a  will  desire. 
But  how  is  this,  that  if  two  men  be  asked  whether  they 
would  go  to  the  wars,  one,  perchance,  would  answer  that 
he  would,  the  other  that  he  would  not ;  but  if  they  were 
asked  whether  they  would  be  happy,  both  would  instantly, 
without  any  doubting,  say  they  would ;  and  for  no  other 
reason  would  the  one  go  to  the  wars,  and  the  other  not, 
but  to  be  happy.  Is  it,  perchance,  that  as  one  looks  for 
his  joy  in  this  thing,  another  in  that,  all  agree  in  their 
desire  of  being  happy,  as  they  would  agree,  if  they  were 
asked,  that  they  wished  to  have  joy,  and  this  joy  they 
call  a  happy  life  ?  Although,  then,  one  obtains  the  joy 
oy  one  means,  another  by  another,  all  have  one  end, 
which  they  strive  to  attain,  namely,  joy.     Which  being  a 


CONDUCT.  341 

thing  which  all  must  say  they  have  experienced,  it  is, 
therefore,  found  in  the  memory,  and  recognized  whenever 
the  name  of  a  happy  life  is  mentioned,"  Now  do  you 
know,  perhaps,  what  happiness  is. 

Coming  down  from  Augustine  to  Helps,  —  "  The  won- 
der is  that  we  live  on  from  day  to  day  learning  so  little 
the  art  of  life.  We  are  constantly  victims  of  every  sort 
of  worry  and  petty  misery,  which  it  would  seem  a  little 
bit  of  reflection  and  sensible  conduct  would  remove.  We 
constantly  hang  together  when  association  only  produces 

unhappiness.     We  know  it,  but  do  not  remedy  it 

We  have  no  right  to  expect  to  meet  many  sympathetic 
people  in  the  course  of  our  lives.  ["To  get  human  be- 
ings together  who  ought  to  be  together,"  said  Sydney 
Smith,  "  is  a  dream."  "  If,"  said  De  Tocqueville,  "  to 
console  you  for  having  been  born,  you  must  meet  with 
men  whose  most  secret  motives  are  always  actuated  by 
fine  and  elevated  feelings,  you  need  not  wait,  you  may 
go  and  drown  yourself  immediately.  But  if  you  would 
be  satisfied  with  a  few  men,  whose  actions  are  in  general 
governed  by  those  motives,  and  a  large  majority,  who 
from  time  to  time  are  influenced  by  them,  you  need  not 
make  such  faces  at  the  human  race.  Man  with  his  vices, 
his  weaknesses,  and  his  virtues,  strange  combination 
though  he  be  of  good  and  evil,  of  grandeur  and  of  base- 
ness, is  still,  on  the  whole,  the  object  most  worthy  of 
study,  interest,  pity,  attachment,  and  admiration  in  the 
world  ;  and  since  we  have  no  angels,  we  cannot  attach 
ourselves,   or   devote   ourselves   to    anything   greater  or 

nobler  than   our  fellow-creatures It  is  when  es- 

limating  better  one's  fellow-men,  one  reckons  them  not 
by  number  but  by  worth ;  and  this  makes  the  world  ap- 
pear small.  Then,  without  regard,to  distance,  one  seeks 
everywhere  for  the  rare  qualities  which  one  has  learned 
to  appreciate."]  The  pleasant  man  to  you  is  the  man 
you  can  rely  upon;  who  is  tolerant,  forbearing,  and  faith 


342  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

ful Again,  the  habit  of  over-criticism  is  another 

hinderance  to  pleasantness.  We  are  not  fond  of  living 
always  with  our  judges  ;  and  daily  life  will  not  bear  the 
unwholesome  scrutiny  of  an  over-critical  person."  The 
petty  annoyances  and  wanton  bitternesses  of  life  make  us, 
in  our  impatience,  sometimes  wish  to  fly  from  all  compan- 
ionship ;  and  contributed,  no  doubt,  —  he  himself  could 
not  tell  how  much,  —  to  make  the  author  of  the  Genius 
of  Solitude  exclaim,  with  so  much  feeling,  "  Happy  is  he 
who,  free  from  the  iron  visages  that  hurt  him  as  they  pass 
in  the  street,  free  from  the  vapid  smiles  and  sneers  of 
frivolous  people,  draws  his  sufficingness  from  inexhausti- 
ble sources  always  at  his  command  when  he  is  alone ! 
Blest  is  he  who,  when  disappointed,  can  turn  from  the 
affectations  of  an  empty  world  and  find  solace  in  the  gen- 
erous sincerity  of  a  full  heart.  To  roam  apart  by  the 
tinkling  rill,  to  crouch  in  the  grass  where  the  crocus  grows, 
to  lie  amid  the  clover  where  the  honey-bee  hums,  gaze  off 
into  the  still  deeps  of  summer  blue,  and  feel  that  your 
harmless  life  is  gliding  over  the  field  of  time  as  noiselessly 
as  the  shadow  of  a  cloud  ;  or,  snuggled  in  furs,  to  trudge 
through  the  drifts  amidst  the  unspotted  scenery  of  v/inter, 
when  Storm  unfurls  his  dark  banner  in  the  sky,  and  Snow 
has  camped  on  the  hills  and  clad  every  stone  and  twig 
with  his  ermine,  is  pleasure  surpassing  any  to  be  won  in 
shallowly  consorting  with  mobs  of  men." 

"The  longer  I  live,"  said  Maurice  de  Gudrin,  "and  the 
clearer  I  discern  between  true  and  false  in  society,  the 
more  does  the  inclination  to  live,  not  as  a  savage  or  a 
misanthrope,  but  as  a  solitary  man  on  the  frontiers  of 
society,  on  the  outskirts  of  the  world,  gain  strength  and 
grow  in  me.  The  birds  come  and  go,  and  make  nests 
around  our  habitations ;  they  are  fellow-citizens  of  our 
farms  and  hamlets  with  us  :  but  they  take  their  flight  in 
a  heaven  which  is  boundless;  the  hand  of  God  alone 
gives  and  measures  to  them  their  daily  food  ;  they  build 


CONDUCT.  343 

their  nests  in  the  heart  of  the  thick  bushes,  and  hang 
them  in  the  height  of  the  trees.  So  would  I,  too,  live, 
hovering  round  society,  and  having  always  at  my  back  a 
field  of  liberty  vast  as  the  sky." 

A.  strange  instance  of  abandonment  of  the  world  for 
a  solitary  life  is  given  in  the  history  of  Henry  Welby,  the 
Hermit  of  Grub  Street,  who  died  in   1638,  at  the  age  of 
eighty-four.     This  example  affords  "  an  eccentric  illustra 
tion  of  one  of  those  phases  of  human  nature  out  of  which 
the  anchoretic  life  has  sprung.     When  forty  years  old, 
\^'elby  was  assailed,  in  a  moment  of  anger,  by  a  younger 
brother,   with  a  loaded   pistol.     It  flashed   in    the  pan. 
'Thinking  of  the  danger  he  had  escaped,  he  fell  into 
many  deep  considerations,  on  the  which  he  grounded  an 
irrevocable  resolution  to  live  alone.'     He  had  wealth  and 
position,  and  was  of  a  social  temper ;  but  the  shock  he 
had  undergone  had  made  him  distrustful  and  meditative, 
not  malignant  nor  wretched,  and  engendered  in  him  a 
purpose  of  surpassing  tenacity.     He  had  three  chambers, 
one  within  another,  prepared  for  his  solitude  ;  the  first 
for  his  diet,  the  second  for  his  lodging,  the  third  for  his 
study.     While  his  food  was  set  on  the  table  by  one  of  his 
servants,  he  retired  into  his  sleeping-room  ;  and,  while 
his  bed  was  making,  into  his  study ;  and  so  on,  until  aU 
was  clear.     '  There  he  set  up  his  rest,  and,  in  forty-four 
years,  never  upon  any  occasion  issued  out  of  those  cham- 
bers   till    he  was   borne   thence   upon   men's   shoulders. 
Neither,  in  all  that  time,  did  any  human  being  —  save,  on 
some  rare  necessity,  his  ancient  maid-servant — look  upon 
his  face.'     Supplied  with  the  best  new  books  in  various 
languages,  he  devoted  himself  unto  prayers  and  reading. 
He  inquired  out  objects  of  charity  and  sent  them  relief. 
He  would  spy  from  his  chamber,  by  a  private  prospect 
nto  the  street,  any  sick,  lame,  or  weak  passing  by,  and 
bend  comforts  and  money  to  them.     '  His  hair,  by  reason 
no  barber  came  near  him  for  the  space  of  so  many  years, 


344  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

was  so  much  overgrown  at  the  time  of  his  death,  that  he 
appeared  rather  Uke  an  eremite  of  the  wilderness  than  an 
inhabitant  of  a  city.'  " 

Welby  must  have  possessed  the  jewel  which  this  inci- 
dent, related  by  Izaak  Walton  in  his  Angler,  discovers  to 
be  so  indispensable.  "  I  knew  a  man,"  he  says,  "  that 
nad  health  and  riches  and  several  houses,  all  beautiful 
and  ready  furnished,  and  would  often  trouble  himself  and 
family  to  be  removing  from  one  house  to  another ;  and, 
being  asked  by  a  friend  why  he  removed  so  often  from 
one  house  to  another,  replied,  '  It  was  to  find  content  in 
some  one  of  them.'  'Content,'  said  his  friend,  'ever 
dwells  in  a  meek  and  quiet  soul.'  " 

"  It 's  no  in  titles  nor  in  rank ; 
It 's  no  in  wealth  like  Lon'on  bank, 

To  purchase  peace  and  rest ; 
It 's  no  in  making  muckle  mair  : 
It 's  no  in  books  ;  it 's  no  in  lear, 

To  make  us  truly  blest : 
If  happiness  hae  not  her  seat 

And  centre  in  the  breast, 
We  may  be  wise,  or  rich,  or  great, 

But  never  can  be  blest : 
Nae  treasures,  nor  pleasures, 

Could  make  us  happy  lang ; 
The  heart  aye's  the  part  aye, 

That  makes  us  right  or  wrang." 

Out  of  mud,  say  the  Orientalists,  springs  the  lotus 
flower ;  out  of  clay  comes  gold  and  many  precious  things  j 
out  of  oysters  the  pear!  3 ;  brightest  silks,  to  robe  fairest 
forms,  are  spun  by  a  worm  ;  bezoar  from  the  bull,  musk 
from  the  deer,  are  produced ;  from  a  stick  is  born  flame  ; 
from  the  jungle  comes  sweetest  honey.  As  from  sources 
of  little  worth  come  the  precious  things  of  earth,  even  so 
is  it  with  hearts  that  hold  their  fortune  within.  They  need 
not  lofty  birth  or  noble  kin.  Their  victory  is  recorded.  A 
rain-drop,  they  say,  fell  into  the  sea.     "  I  am  lost !  "  it 


CONDUCT.  345 

cried  ;  "what  am  I  in  such  a  sea?  "  Into  the  shell  of  a 
gaping  oyster  it  fell,  and  there  was  formed  into  the  orient 
pearl  which  now  shines  fairest  in  Britain's  diadem.  Hu- 
mility creates  the  worth  it  underrates.  "  By  two  things," 
says  the  author  of  the  Imitation,  "  a  man  is  lifted  up  from 
thiigs  earthly,  namely,  by  simplicity  and  purity.  A  pure 
heart  penetrateth  heaven  and  hell.  Such  as  every  one  is 
inwardly,  so  he  judgeth  outwardly.     If  there  be  joy  in  the 

world,  surely  a  man  of  a  pure  heart  possesseth  it 

Let  not  thy  peace  depend  on  the  tongues  of  men ;  for 
whether  they  judge  well  of  thee  or  ill,  thou  art  not  on 
that  account  other  than  thyself.  He  that  careth  not  to 
please  men,  nor  feareth   to  displease  them,  shall   enjoy 

much  peace He  enjoyeth  great  tranquillity  of  heart, 

that  careth  neither  for  the  praise  nor  dispraise  of  men.  If 
thou  consider  what  thou  art  in  thyself,  thou  wilt  not  care 
what  men  say  of  thee.  Man  looketh  on  the  countenance, 
but  God  on  the  heart.  Man  considereth  the  deeds,  but 
God  weigheth  the  intentions."  "  Will  you  not  be  very 
glad  to  know,"  wrote  Eugdnie  de  Gu^rin  to  her  brother, 
in  Paris,  "that  I  have  just  been  spending  a  pleasant 
quarter  of  an  hour  on  the  terrace-steps,  seated  by  the  side 
of  an  old  woman,  who  was  singing  me  a  lamentable  ballad 
OP  an  event  that  occurred  long  ago  at  Cahuzac?  This 
came  about  apropos  of  a  gold  cross  that  has  been  stolen 
from  the  neck  of  the  blessed  Virgin.  The  old  woman 
remembered  her  grandmother  telling  her  that  she  had 
heard  in  olden  times  of  this  same  church  being  the  scene 
of  a  still  more  sacrilegious  robbery,  since  it  was  then  the 
blessed  sacrament  that  was  carried  off  one  day  when  it 
was  left  exposed  in  the  empty  church.  A  young  girl 
came  to  the  altar  while  everybody  was  busy  in  the  har- 
vest, and,  mounting  upon  it,  put  the  pyx  into  her  apron, 
and  went  and  placed  it  under  a  rose-tree  in  a  wood.  The 
shepherds  who  discovered  it  told  where  it  was,  and  nine 
priests  came  in  procession  to  adore  the  blessed  sacrament 


346  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

under  the  rose-tree,  and  to  carry  it  back  to  the  church. 
But  for  all  that,  the  poor  shepherdess  was  arrested,  tried, 
and  condemned  to  be  burned.  Just  when  about  to  die, 
she  requested  to  confess,  and  owned  the  fact  to  a  priest ; 
but  it  was  not,  she  said,  because  of  any  thievish  propensi- 
tiei-  she  took  it,  but  that  she  wanted  to  have  the  blessed 
sacrament  in  the  forest.  'I  thought  that  the  good  God 
would  be  as  satisfied  under  a  rose-tree  as  on  an  altar.'  At 
these  words  an  angel  descended  from  heaven  to  announce 
her  pardon,  and  to  comfort  the  pious  criminal,  who  was 
burnt  on  a  stake,  of  which  the  rose-tree  formed  the  first 
fagot."  There  is  a  tradition  that  one  night,  Gabriel,  from 
his  seat  in  paradise,  heard  the  voice  of  God  sweetly  re- 
sponding to  a  human  heart.  The  angel  said,  "  Surelji 
this  must  be  an  eminent  servant  of  the  Most  High,  whose 
spirit  is  dead  to  lust  and  lives  on  high."  The  angel  has- 
tened over  land  and  sea  to  find  this  man,  but  could  not 
find  him  in  the  earth  or  heavens.  At  last  he  exclaimed, 
"  O  Lord,  show  me  the  way  to  the  object  of  thy  love  ! " 
God  answered,  "  Turn  thy  steps  to  yon  village,  and  in 
that  pagoda  thou  shalt  behold  him."  The  angel  sped  to 
the  pagoda,  and  therein  found  a  solitary  man  kneeling 
before  an  idol.  Returning,  he  cried,  "  O  master  of  the 
world  !  hast  thou  looked  with  love  on  a  man  who  invokes 
an  idol  in  a  pagoda  }  "  God  said,  "  I  consider  not  the 
error  of  ignorance  :  this  heart,  amid  its  darkness,  hath  the 
highest  place." 

Anaxagoras,  whose  disciples  were  Socrates  and  Peri- 
cles and  Euripides,  in  reply  to  a  question,  said  he  believed 
those  to  be  most  happy  who  seem  least  to  be  so  ;  and  that 
tve  must  not  look  among  the  rich  and  great  for  persons 
who  taste  true  happiness,  but  among  those  who  till  a  small 
piece  of  ground,  or  apply  themselves  to  the  sciences, 
without  ambition.  "The  fairest  lives,  in  my  opinion,'* 
said  Montaigne,  "  are  those  which  regularly  accommodate 
themselves  to  the  common  and  human  model,  without  mir- 


CONDUCT.  347 

acle,  without  extravagance."  "  If  some  great  men,"  said 
Mandeville,  *'  had  not  a  superlative  pride,  and  everybody 
understood  the  enjoyment  of  life,  who  would  be  a  lord 
chancellor,  a  prime  minister,  or  a  grand  pensionary  ?  " 
There  is  in  existence  a  precious  old  album  containing  the 
handwriting  of  many  renowned  men,  such  as  Luther, 
Erasmus,  Mosheim,  and  others.  The  last-mentioned  has 
written,  in  Latin,  the  following  remarkable  words  :  "  Re- 
nown is  a  source  of  toil  and  sorrow  ;  obscurity  is  a  source 
of  happiness."  "  Does  he  not  drink  more  sweetly  that 
takes  his  beverage  in  an  earthen  vessel,"  asks  Jeremy 
Taylor,  "  than  he  that  looks  and  searches  into  his  golden 
chalices,  for  fear  of  poison,  and  looks  pale  at  every  sud- 
den noise,  and  sleeps  in  armor,  and  trusts  nobody,  and 
does  not  trust  God  for  safety  ?  " 

"  The  world,"  said  Goethe,  "  could  not  exist,  if  it  were 
not  so  simple.  This  ground  has  been  tilled  a  thousand 
years,  yet  its  powers  remain  ever  the  same  ;  a  little  rain, 
a  little  sun,  and  each  spring  it  grows  green  again." 

"  Everything  has  its  own  limits,"  says  Hazlitt,  "  a  little 
centre  of  its  own,  round  which  it  moves  ;  so  that  our  true 
wisdom  lies  in  our  keeping  in  our  own  walk  in  life,  how- 
ever humble  or  obscure,  and  being  satisfied  if  we  can  suc- 
ceed in  it.  The  best  of  us  can  do  no  more,  and  we  shall 
only  become  ridiculous  or  unhappy  by  attempting  it.  We 
are  ashamed  because  we  are  at  a  loss  in  things  to  which 
we  have  no  pretensions,  and  try  to  remedy  our  mistakes 
by  committing  greater.  An  overweening  vanity  or  self- 
opinion  is,  in  truth,  often  at  the  bottom  of  this  weakness  ; 
and  we  shall  be  most  likely  to  conquer  the  one  by  eradi- 
cating the  other,  or  restricting  it  within  due  and  moderate 
bounds." 

In  the  Imaginary  Conversations,  Aspasia  asks  Pericles: 
"  Is  there  any  station  so  happy  as  an  uncontested  place 
in  a  small  community,  where  manners  are  simple,  where 
wants  are  few,  where  respect  is  the  tribute  of  probity,  and 
love  is  the  guerdon  of  beneficence  ? " 


348  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

"  From  my  tutor,"  said  the  good  emperor  Marcus  Au- 
relius,  "  I  learnt  endurance  of  labor,  and  to  want  little, 
and  to  work  with  my  own  hands,  and  not  to  meddle  with 
other  people's  affairs,  and  not  to  be  ready  to  listen  to 
slander." 

"  Ah  !  "  exclaimed  the  Attic  Philosopher,  "  if  men  but 
knew  in  what  a  small  dwelling  joy  can  live,  and  how  little 
it  costs  to  furnish  it !  .  .  .  .  Does  a  man  drink  more  when 
he  drinks  from  a  large  glass  ?  From  whence  comes  that 
universal  dread  of  mediocrit}'^,  the  fruitful  mother  of  peace 
and  liberty  ?  Ah !  there  is  the  evil  which,  above  every 
other,  it  should  be  the  aim  of  both  public  and  private 
education  to  anticipate !  If  that  were  got  rid  of,  what 
treasons  would  be  spared,  what  baseness  avoided,  what  a 
chain  of  excess  and  crime  would  be  forever  broken  !  We 
award  the  palm  to  charity,  and  to  self-sacrifice  :  but, 
above  all,  let  us  award  it  to  moderation,  for  it  is  the  great 
social  virtue.  Even  when  it  does  not  create  the  others, 
it  stands  instead  of  them."  Socrates  used  to  say  that  the 
man  who  ate  with  the  greatest  appetite  had  the  least  need 
of  delicacies  ;  and  that  he  who  drank  with  the  greatest 
appetite  was  the  least  inclined  to  look  for  a  draught  which 
is  not  at  hand  ;  and  that  those  who  want  fewest  things  are 
nearest  to  the  gods.  Milton  says  that  the  lyric  poet  may 
drink  wine  and  live  generously,  but  the  epic  poet,  he  who 
shall  sing  of  the  gods,  and  their  descent  unto  men,  must 
drink  water  out  of  a  golden  bowl.  "  Have  you  never 
noticed,"  said  Hiero,  "  all  the  multitudinous  contrivances 
which  are  set  before  tyrants,  acid,  and  harsh,  and  sour; 
and  whatsoever  else  there  can  be  of  the  same  kind  .•* " 
"  To  be  sure  I  have,"  said  Simonides  ;  "  and  all  these 
things  appeared  to  me  to  be  very  contrary  to  the  natural 
taste  of  any  man."  "  And  do  you  think,"  said  Hiero, 
**  that  these  dishes  are  anything  else  but  the  fancies  of  a 
diseased  and  vitiated  taste  ;  since  those  who  eat  with 
appetite,  you  well  know,  have  no  need  of  these  contriv- 


CONDUCT.  349 

ances  and  provocatives?"  Michel  Angelo  seldom  par- 
took of  the  enjoyments  of  the  table,  and  used  to  say, 
"  However  rich  I  may  have  been,  I  have  always  lived  as 
a  poor  man."  Said  Seneca,  "  He  that  lives  according  to 
nature  cannot  be  poor,  and  he  that  exceeds  can  never 
have  enough."  Epicurus  said,  "  I  feed  sweetly  upon 
bread  and  water,  those  sweet  and  easy  provisions  of  the 
body,  and  I  defy  the  pleasures  of  costly  provisions." 
Cardinal  Mancini  staying  once  on  a  visit  to  Poussin  till 
it  was  dark,  the  artist  took  the  candle  in  his  hand,  lighted 
him  down-stairs,  and  waited  upon  him  to  his  coach.  The 
prelate  was  sorry  to  see  him  do  it  himself,  and  could  lot 
help  saying,  "  I  very  much  pity  you,  Poussin,  that  you 
have  not  one  servant."  "  And  I  pity  you  more,  my  lord," 
replied  Poussin,  "  that  you  have  so  many,"  "  No  man 
needs  to  flatter,"  said  Jeremy  Taylor,  "if  he  can  live  as 
nature  did  intend.  He  need  not  swell  his  accounts,  and 
intricate  his  spirit  with  arts  of  subtlety  and  contrivance  ; 
he  can  be  free  from  fears,  and  the  chances  of  the  world 
cannot  concern  him.  All  our  trouble  is  from  within  us  ; 
and  if  a  dish  of  lettuce  and  a  clear  fountain  can  cool  all 
my  heats,  so  that  I  shall  have  neither  thirst  nor  pride, 
lust  nor  revenge,  envy  nor  ambition,  I  am  lodged  in  the 
bosom  of  felicity." 

"Prosperity,"  says  Froude,  in  one  of  his  essays,  "is 
consistent  with  intense  worldliness,  intense  selfishness,  in- 
tense hardness  of  heart ;  while  the  grander  features  of 
human  character,  —  self-sacrifice,  disregard  of  pleasure, 
patriotism,  love  of  knowledge,  devotion  to  any  great  and 
good  cause, — these  have  no  tendency  to  bring  men  what 
is  called  fortune.  They  do  not  even  necessarily  promote 
their  happiness  ;  for  do  what  they  will  in  this  way,  the 
horizon  of  what  they  desire  to  do  perpetually  flies  before 
them.  High  hopes  and  enthusiasms  are  generally  disap- 
pointed in  results  ;  and  the  wrongs,  the  cruelties,  the 
wretchedness  of   all  kinds  which  forever  prevail  among 


350  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

mankind,  —  the  short-comings  in  himself  of  which  he  be- 
comes more  conscious  as  he  becomes  really  better,  — 
these  things,  you  may  be  sure,  will  prevent  a  noble-minded 
man  from  ever  being  particularly  happy,"  "  I  should 
rather  say,"  he  says  in  another  essay,  "  that  the  Scots 
had  been  an  unusually  happy  people.  Intelligent  indus- 
tr}'-,  the  honest  doing  of  daily  work,  with  a  sense  that  it 
must  be  done  well,  under  penalties ;  the  necessaries  of 
life  moderately  provided  for  ;  and  a  sensible  content  with 
the  situation  of  life  in  which  men  are  born  —  this  through 
the  week,  and  at  the  end  of  it  the  Cotter's  Saturday  Night 
—  the  homely  family,  gathered  reverently  and  peacefully 
together,  and  irradiated  with  a  sacred  presence.  Happi- 
ness !  such  happiness  as  we  human  creatures  are  likely 
to  know  upon  this  world  will  be  found  there,  if  anywhere.' 

"  On  the  Simplon,"  says  a  German  traveler,  "  amid  the 
desert  of  snow  and  mist,  in  the  vicinity  of  a  refuge,  a  boy 
and  his  little  sister  were  journeying  up  the  mountain  by 
the  side  of  our  carriage.  Both  had  on  their  backs  little 
baskets  filled  with  wood,  which  they  had  gathered  in  the 
lower  mountains,  where  there  is  still  some  vegetation. 
The  boy  gave  us  some  specimens  of  rock  crystal  and 
other  stone,  for  which  we  gave  him  some  small  coins. 
The  delight  with  which  he  cast  stolen  glances  at  his 
money,  as  he  passed  by  our  carriage,  made  upon  me  an 
indelible  impression.  Never  before  had  I  seen  such  a 
heavenly  expression  of  felicity.  I  could  not  but  reflect 
that  God  had  placed  all  sources  and  capabilities  for 
happiness  in  the  human  heart ;  and  that,  with  respect  to 
happiness,  it  is  perfectly  indifferent  how  and  where  one 
dwells." 

"A  man,"  says  Cumberland,  "who  is  gifted  with  worldly 
qualities  and  accommodations  is  armed  with  hands,  as  a 
ship  with  grappling-irons,  ready  to  catch  hold  of,  and  make 
himself  fast  to  everything  he  comes  in  contact  with,  and 
such  a  man,  with  all  these  properties  of  adhesion,  has  also 


CONDUCT.  351 

the  property,  like  the  polypus,  of  a  most  miraculous  and 
convenient  indivisibility;  cut  off  his  hold — nay,  cut  him 
how  you  will,  he  is  still  a  polypus,  whole  and  entire.  Men 
of  this  sort  still  work  their  way  out  of  their  obscurity  like 
cockroaches  out  of  the  hold  of  a  ship,  and  crawl  into  no- 
tice, nay,  even  into  kings'  palaces,  as  the  frogs  did  into 
Pharaoh's;  the  happy  faculty  of  noting  times  and  seasons, 
and  a  lucky  promptitude  to  avail  themselves  of  moments 
with  address  and  boldness,  are  alone  such  all-sufficient 
requisites,  such  marketable  stores  of  worldly  knowledge, 
that,  although  the  minds  of  those  who  own  them  shall  be, 
as  to  all  the  liberal  "sciences,  a  rasa  tabula,  yet  knowip-^ 
these  things  needful  to  be  known,  let  their  difficulties  and 
distresses  be  what  they  may,  though  the  storm  of  adver- 
sity threatens  to  overwhelm  them,  they  are  in  a  life-boat, 
buoyed  up  by  corks,  and  cannot  sink.  These  are  the  stray 
children  turned  loose  upon  the  world,  whom  Fortune,  in 
her  charity,  takes  charge  of,  and  for  whose  guidance  in 
the  by-ways  and  cross-roads  of  their  pilgrimage  she  sets 
up  fairy  finger-posts,  discoverable  by  those  whose  eyes 
are  near  the  ground,  but  unperceived  by  such  whose  looks 
are  raised  above  it." 

"  Genial  manners  are  good,"  says  Emerson,  "  and  power 
of  accommodation  to  any  circumstance;  but  the  high  prize 
of  life,  the  crowning  fortune  of  a  man,  is  to  be  born  with 
a  bia-:  to  some  pursuit,  which  finds  him  in  employment 
and  happiness,  —  whether  it  be  to  make  baskets,  or  broad- 
swords, or  canals,  or  statues,  or  songs." 

Wordsworth's  man-servant,  James,  was  brought  up  in  a 
work-house,  and  at  nine  years  of  age  was  turned  out  of 
the  house  with  two  shillings  in  his  pocket.  When  without 
a  sixpence,  he  was  picked  up  by  a  farmer,  who  took  him 
into  his  service  on  condition  that  all  his  clothes  should  be 
burnt  (they  were  so  filthy)  ;  and  he  was  to  pay  for  his  new 
clothes  out  of  his  wages  of  two  pounds  ten  shillings  pet 
annum.     Here  he  stayed  as  long  as  he  was  wanted.     "  I 


352  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

have  been  so  lucky,"  said  James,  "  that  I  was  never  out 
of  a  place  a  day  in  my  life,  for  I  was  always  taken  into 
service  immediately.  I  never  got  into  a  scrape,  or  was 
drunk  in  my  life,  for  I  never  taste  any  liquor.  So  that  I 
have  often  said,  I  consider  myself  as  a  favorite  of  fort- 
une !  "  This  is  like  Goldsmith's  cripple  in  the  park,  who, 
remarking  upon  his  appealing  wretchedness,  said,  "  'T  is 
not  every  man  that  can  be  born  with  a  golden  spoon  in 
his  mouth." 

"  Arrogance,"  said  Goethe,  "  is  natural  to  youth.  A 
man  believes,  in  his  youth,  that  the  world  properly  began 
with  him,  and  that  all  exists  for  his  sake.  In  the  East, 
there  was  a  man  who,  every  morning,  collected  his  people 
about  him,  and  never  would  go  to  work  till  he  had  com- 
manded the  sun  to  arise.  But  he  was  wise  enough  not  to 
speak  his  command  till  the  sun  of  its  own  accord  was 
ready  to  appear."  "  At  the  outset  of  life,"  says  Hazlitt, 
"  our  imagination  has  a  body  to  it.  We  are  in  a  state  be- 
tween sleeping  and  waking,  and  have  indistinct  but  glo- 
rious glimpses  of  strange  shapes,  and  there  is  always 
something  to  come  better  than  what  we  see.  As  in  our 
dreams  the  fullness  of  the  blood  gives  warmth  and  reality 
to  the  coinage  of  the  brain,  so  in  youth  our  ideas  are 
clothed,  and  fed,  and  pampered  with  our  good  spirits ;  we 
breathe  thick  with  thoughtless  happiness,  the  weight  of 
future  years  presses  on  the  strong  pulses  of  the  heart, 
and  we  repose  with  undisturbed  faith  in  truth  and  good. 
As  we  advance,  we  exhaust  our  fund  of  enjoyment  and 
of  hope.  We  are  no  longer  wrapped  in  lamb's-wool,  lulled 
in  Elysium,  As  we  taste  the  pleasures  of  life,  their  spirit 
evaporates,  the  sense  palls,  and  nothing  is  left  but  the 
phantoms,  the  lifeless  shadows  of  what  has  been  !  " 

"  There  was  a  time  when  meadow,  grove,  and  stream. 
The  earth,  and  every  common  sight, 
To  me  did  seem 
Apparel'd  in  celestial  light, 
The  glory  and  the  freshness  of  a  dream 


CONDUCT.  353 

It  is  not  now  as  it  has  been  of  yore  ; 
Turn  wheresoe'er  I  may, 
By  night  or  day, 
The  things  which  I  have  seen  I  now  can  see  no  more. 

"  The  rainbow  comes  and  goes. 
And  lovely  is  the  rose  ; 
The  moon  doth  with  delight 
Look  round  her  when  the  heavens  are  bare  ; 
Waters  on  a  starry  night 
Are  beautiful  and  fair  ; 
The  sunshine  is  a  glorious  birth  ; 
But  yet  I  know,  where'er  I  go, 
That  there  hath  passed  away  a  glory  from  the  earth." 

"Why,"  asks  Souvestre,  "is  there  so  much  confidence 
at  first,  so  much  doubt  at  last  ?  Has,  then,  the  knowledge 
of  life  no  other  end  but  to  make  it  unfit  for  happiness  ? 
Must  we  condemn  ourselves  to  ignorance  if  we  would 
preserve  hope  ?  Is  the  world,  and  is  the  individual  man, 
intended,  after  all,  to  find  rest  only  in  an  eternal  child- 
hood ? " 

"  If  the  world  does  improve  on  the  whole,"  said  Goethe, 
"yet  youth  must  always  begin  anew,  and  go  through  the 
stages  of  culture  from  the  beginning."  But,  "  't  is  a  great 
advantage  of  rank,"  said  Pascal,  "  that  a  man  at  eighteen 
or  twenty  shall  be  allowed  the  same  esteem  and  deference 
which  another  purchaseth  by  his  merit  at  fifty.  Here  are 
thirty  years  gained  at  a  stroke." 

"The  whole  employment  of  men's  lives,"  said  the 
same  thinker,  "  is  to  improve  their  fortunes ;  and  yet  the 
title  by  which  they  hold  all,  if  traced  to  its  origin,  is  no 
more  than  the  pure  fancy  of  the  legislators  :  but  their 
possession  is  still  more  precarious  than  their  right,  and  at 
the  mercy  of  a  thousand  accidents  :  nor  are  the  treasures 
of  the  mind  better  insured  ;  while  a  fail,  or  a  fit  of  sick- 
ness, may  bankrupt  the  ablest  understanding Cassar 

was  too  old,  in  my  opinion,  to  amuse  himself  with  project- 
ing the  conquest  of  the  world.     Such  an  imagination  was 
i6 


354  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

excusable  in  Alexander,  a  prince  full  of  youth  and  fire, 
and  not  easy  to  be  checked  in  his  hopes.  But  Caesar 
ought  to  have  been  more  grave." 

"  Knowledge  has  two  extremities,  which  meet  and  touch 
each  other,"  says  Pascal,  again.  "The  first  of  them  is 
pure,  natural  ignorance,  such  as  attends  every  man  at  his 
birth.  The  other  is  the  perfection  attained  by  great  souls, 
who,  having  run  through  the  circle  of  all  that  mankind 
can  know,  find  at  length  that  they  know  nothing,  and 
are  contented  to  return  to  that  ignorance  from  which  they 
set  out.  Ignorance  that  thus  knows  itself  is  a  wise  and 
learned  ignorance." 

"That  is  ever  the  difTerence,"  said  Emerson,  "between 
the  wise  and  the  unwise :  the  latter  wonders  at  what  is 
unusual,  the  wise  man  wonders  at  the  usual." 

It  has  been  said  that  the  visitor,  climbing  the  white 
roof  of  the  Milan  cathedral,  and  gazing  on  the  forest  of 
statues,  "  feels  as  though  a  flight  of  angels  had  alighted 
there  and  been  struck  to  marble."  "At  the  top  of  his 
mind,"  says  Alger,  "  the  devout  scholar  has  a  holy  of 
holies,  a  little  pantheon  set  round  with  altars  and  the  im- 
ages of  the  greatest  men.  Every  day,  putting  on  a  priestly 
robe,  he  retires  into  this  temple  and  passes  before  its 
shrines  and  shapes.  Here  he  feels  a  thrill  of  awe ;  there 
he  lays  a  burning  aspiration  ;  farther  on  he  swings  a  cen- 
ser of  reverence.  To  one  he  lifts  a  look  of  love  ;  at  the 
feet  of  another  he  drops  a  grateful  tear ;  and  before  an- 
other still,  a  flush  of  pride  and  joy  suffuses  him.  They 
smile  on  him  :  sometimes  they  speak  and  wave  their  sol- 
emn hands.  Always  they  look  up  to  the  Highest.  Puri- 
fied and  hallowed,  he  gathers  his  soul  together,  and  comes 
away  from  the  worshipful  intercourse,  serious,  serene,  glad, 
and  strong." 

"  Men,"  says  St.  Augustine,  "  travel  far  to  climb  high 
mountains,  to  observe  the  majesty  of  the  ocean,  to  trace 
the  sources  of  rivers,  but  they  neglect  themselves."    "  Ad- 


CONDUCT.  3^$ 

tnirable  reasoning: !  admirable  lesson  !  "  exclaimed  Pe- 
trarch,  as  he  closed  the  Confessions  upon  the  passage 
when  on  the  summit  of  the  Alps.  "  If,"  said  he,  "  I  have 
undergone  so  much  labor  in  climbing  this  mountain  that 
my  body  might  be  nearer  to  heaven,  what  ought  1  not  to 
do  in  order  that  my  soul  may  be  received  into  those  im- 
mortal regions  ? " 

Hear  this  lofty  strain  of  the  old  heathen  emperor,  Mar- 
cus Aurelius :  "Short  is  the  little  which  remains  to  thee 
of  life.  Live  as  on  a  mountain.  Let  men  see,  let  them 
know,  a  real  man,  who  lives  as  he  was  meant  to  live.  If 
they  cannot  endure  him,  let  them  kill  him.  For  that  i" 
better  than  to  live  as  men  do." 

"  As  soon  as  a  man,"  says  Max  Miiller,  "  becomes  con- 
scious of  himself  as  distinct  from  all  other  things  and  per- 
sons, he  at  the  same  moment  becomes  conscious  of  a 
Higher  Self,  a  higher  power,  without  which  he  feels  that 
neither  he  nor  anything  else  would  have  any  life  or  re- 
ality." 

"To  live,  indeed,"  says  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  "is  to  be 
again  ourselves,  which  being  not  only  a  hope  but  an  evi- 
dence in  noble  believers,  't  is  all  one  to  lie  in  St.  Inno- 
cent's church-yard,  as  in  the  sands  of  Egypt ;  ready  to 
be  anything  in  the  ecstasy  of  being  ever,  and  as  content 
with  six  feet  as  the  moles  of  Adrianus." 

"  At  the  age  of  seventy-five,"  said  Goethe,  "  one  must, 
of  course,  think  frequently  of  death.  But  this  thought 
never  gives  me  the  least  uneasiness,  I  am  so  fully  con- 
vinced that  the  soul  is  indestructible,  and  that  its  activity 
will  continue  through  eternity.  It  is  like  the  sun,  which 
seems  to  our  earthly  eyes  to  set  in  night,  but  is  in  reality 
gone  to  diffuse  its  light  elsewhere." 

"The  soul's  dark  cottage,  battered  and  decayed, 
Lets  in  new  light  thru'  chinks  that  time  has  made  ; 
Stronger  by  weakness,  wiser  men  become 
As  they  draw  near  to  their  eternal  home. 
Leaving  the  old,  both  worlds  at  once  they  view 
That  stand  upon  the  threshold  of  the  new." 


3S6  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

Amongst  the  poems  of  Mrs.  Barbauld  is  a  stanza  on 
Life,  written  in  extreme  old  age.  Madame  D'Arblay  told 
the  poet  Rogers  that  she  repeated  it  every  night.  Words- 
worth once  said  to  a  visitor,  "  Repeat  me  that  stanza  by 
Mrs.  Barbauld."  His  friend  did  so.  Wordsworth  made 
him  repeat  it  again.  And  so  he  learned  it  by  heart.  He 
was  at  the  time  walking  in  his  sitting-room  at  Rydal,  with 
his  hands  behind  him,  and  was  heard  to  mutter  to  him- 
self, "  I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  grudging  people  their  good 
things,  but  I  wish  I  had  written  those  lines." 

"  Life  !  we  've  been  long  together, 
Thro'  pleasant  and  thro'  cloudy  weather  : 
'T  is  hard  to  part  when  friends  are  dear, 
Perhaps  't  will  cost  a  sigh,  a  tear  : 
Then  steal  away,  give  little  warning, 

Choose  thine  own  time  ; 
Say  not  good-night,  but  in  some  brighter  clioM 
Bid  me  good-morning." 


XIII. 

RELIGION. 

"Ah  I"  sighed  Shelley  to  Leigh  Hunt,  as  the  organ 
was  playing  in  the  cathedral  at  Pisa,  "  what  a  divine  re- 
ligion might  be  found  out  if  charity  were  really  made  the 
principle  of  it  instead  of  faith." 

"  In  the  seventeenth  century,"  said  Dean  Stanley,  in 
one  of  his  Lectures  on  the  Church  of  Scotland,  "  the 
minister  of  the  parish  of  Anworth  was  the  famous  Sam- 
uel Rutherford,  the  great  religious  oracle  of  the  Cove- 
nanters and  their  adherents.  It  was,  as  all  readers  of  his 
letters  will  remember,  the  spot  which  he  most  loved  on 
earth.  The  very  swallows  and  sparrows  which  found 
their  nests  in  the  church  of  Anworth  were,  when  far  away, 
the  objects  of  his  affectionate  envy.  Its  hills  and  valleys 
were  the  witnesses  of  his  ardent  devotion  when  living; 
they  still  retain  his  memory  with  unshaken  fidelity.  It  is 
one  of  the  traditions  thus  cherished  on  the  spot,  that  on 
a  Saturday  evening,  at  one  of  those  family  gatherings 
whence,  in  the  language  of  the  good  Scottish  poet,  — 

'  Old  Scotia's  grandeur  springs,' 
when  Rutherford  was  catechising  his  children  and  serv- 
ants, that  a  stranger  knocked  at  the  door  of  the  manse, 
and  begged  shelter  for  the  night.  The  minister  kindly 
received  him,  and  asked  him  to  take  his  place  amongst 
the  family  and  assist  at  their  religious  exercises.  It  so 
happened  that  the  question  in  the  catechism  which  came 
to  the  stranger's  turn  was  that  which  asks,  '  How  many 
commandments  are  there  ? '  He  answered,  '  Eleven.' 
Eleven  ! '  exclaimed  Rutherford ;  '  I  am  surprised  that  a 


358  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

man  of  your  age  and  appearance  should  not  know  better. 
What  do  you  mean  ? '  And  he  answered,  '  A  new  com- 
mandment I  give  unto  you,  that  ye  love  one  another ;  as 
I  have  loved  you,  that  ye  also  love  one  another.  By  this 
shall  all  men  know  that  ye  are  my  disciples,  if  ye  have 
love  one  to  another.'  Rutherford  was  much  impressed 
by  the  answer,  and  they  retired  to  rest.  The  next  morn- 
ing he  rose  early  to  meditate  on  the  services  of  the  day. 
The  old  manse  of  Anworth  stood  —  its  place  is  still 
pointed  out  —  in  the  corner  of  a  field,  under  the  hill- 
side, and  thence  a  long,  winding,  wooded  path,  still  called 
Rutherford's  Walk,  leads  to  the  church.  Through  this 
glen  he  passed,  and,  as  he  threaded  his  way  through  the 
thicket,  he  heard  amongst  the  trees  the  voice  of  the 
stranger  at  his  morning  devotions.  The  elevation  of  the 
sentiments  and  of  the  expressions  convinced  him  that  it 
was  no  common  man.  He  accosted  him,  and  the  traveler 
confessed  to  him  that  he  was  no  other  than  the  great  di- 
vine and  scholar.  Archbishop  Usher,  the  Primate  of  the 
Church  of  Ireland,  one  of  the  best  and  most  learned  men 
of  his  age,  who  well  fulfilled  that  new  commandment  in 
the  love  which  he  won  and  which  he  bore  to  others ;  one 
of  the  few  links  of  Christian  charity  between  the  fierce 
contending  factions  of  that  time,  devoted  to  King  Charles 
I.  in  his  life-time,  and  honored  in  his  grave  by  the  Pro- 
tector Cromwell.  He  it  was  who,  attracted  by  Ruther- 
ford's fame,  had  thus  come  in  disguise  to  see  him  in  the 
privacy  of  his  own  home.  The  stern  Covenanter  wel- 
comed the  stranger  prelate ;  side  by  side  they  pursued 
their  way  along  Rutherford's  Walk  to  the  little  church,  of 
which  the  ruins  still  remain ;  and  in  that  small  Presby- 
terian sanctuary,  from  Rutherford's  rustic  pulpit,  the  arch- 
bishop preached  to  the  people  of  Anworth  on  the  words 
which  had  so  startled  his  host  the  evening  before:  'A  new 
commandment  I  give  unto  you,  that  ye  love  one  another ; 
as  I  have  loved  you,  that  ye  also  love  one  another.'  " 


RELIGION.  359 

In  a  legend  which  St.  Jerome  has  recorded,  and  which, 
says  the  same  writer,  in  his  Essays  on  the  ApostoHc  Age, 
is  not  the  less  impressive  because  so  familiar  to  us,  we 
see  the  aged  Apostle  (John)  borne  in  the  arms  of  his 
disciples  into  the  Ephesian  assembly,  and  there  repeat- 
ing over  and  over  again  the  same  saying,  "  Little  chil- 
dren, love  one  another ; "  till,  when  asked  why  he  said 
this  and  nothing  else,  he  replied  in  those  well-known 
words,  fit  indeed  to  be  the  farewell  speech  of  the  beloved 
disciple,  "  Because  this  is  our  Lord's  command,  and  if 
you  fulfill  this,  nothing  else  is  needed." 

"An  acceptance  of  the  sentiment  of  love  throughout 
Christendom  for  a  season,"  says  Emerson,  "  would  bring 
the  felon  and  the  outcast  to  our  side  in  tears,  with  the 
devotion  of  his  faculties  to  our  service.  Love  would  put 
a  new  face  on  this  weary  old  world,  in  which  we  dwell  as 
pagans  and  enemies  too  long,  and  it  would  warm  the 
heart  to  see  how  fast  the  vain  diplomacy  of  statesmen, 
the  impotence  of  armies  and  navies  and  lines  of  defense, 
would  be  superseded  by  this  unarmed  child."  We  do 
not  believe,  or  we  forget,  that  "  the  Holy  Ghost  came 
down,  not  in  the  shape  of  a  vulture,  but  in  the  form  of  a 
dove." 

Rogers'  stories  of  children,  of  which  he  told  many, 
were  very  pretty.  The  prettiest  was  of  a  little  girl  who 
was  a  great  favorite  of  every  one  who  knew  her.  "  Why 
does  everybody  love  you  so  much  .? "  She  answered,  "  I 
think  it  is  because  I  love  everybody  so  much." 

"  A  strong  argument,"  thought  Poe,  "  for  the  religion 
of  Christ  is  this  —  that  offenses  against  charity  are  about 
the  only  ones  which  men  on  their  death-beds  can  be  made 
—  not  to  understand  —  but  to  feel  —  as  crime." 

"  Tell  me,  gentle  traveler,  who  hast  wandered  through 
the  world,  and  seen  the  sweetest  roses  blow,  and  bright- 
est gliding  rivers,  of  all  thine  eyes  have  seen,  which  is 
the  fairest  land  ?  "     "  Child,  shall  I  tell  thee  where  nature 


360  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

is  most  blest  and  fair  ?  It  is  where  those  we  love  abide. 
Though  that  space  be  small,  ample  is  it  above  kingdoms ; 
though  it  be  a  desert,  through  it  runs  the  river  of  para- 
dise, and  there  are  the  enchanted  bowers." 

"  We  ought,"  says  the  author  of  Ecce  Homo,  "  to  be 
just  as  tolerant  of  an  imperfect  creed  as  we  are  of  an  im- 
perfect practice.  Everything  which  can  be  urged  in  ex- 
cuse for  the  latter  may  also  be  pleaded  for  the  former. 
If  the  way  to  Christian  action  is  beset  by  corrupt  habits 
and  misleading  passions,  the  path  to  Christian  truth  is 
overgrown  with  prejudices,  and  strewn  with  fallen  theories 
and  rotting  systems  which  hide  it  from  our  view.  It  is 
quite  as  hard  to  think  rightly  as  to  act  rightly,  or  even  to 
feel  rightly.  And  as  all  allow  that  an  error  is  a  less  cul- 
pable thing  than  a  crime  or  a  vicious  passion,  it  is  mon- 
strous that  it  should  be  more  severely  punished  ;  it  is 
monstrous  that  Christ,  who  was  called  the  friend  of  pub- 
licans and  sinners,  should  be  represented  as  the  pitiless 
enemy  of  bewildered  seekers  of  truth.  How  could  men 
have  been  guilty  of  such  an  inconsistency  ?  By  speaking 
of  what  they  do  not  understand.  Men  in  general  do  not 
understand  or  appreciate  the  difficulty  of  finding  truth. 
All  men  must  act,  and  therefore  all  men  learn  in  some 
degree  how  difficult  it  is  to  act  rightly.  The  consequence 
is  that  all  men  can  make  excuse  for  those  who  fail  to  act 
rightly.  But  all  men  are  not  compelled  to  make  an  in- 
dependent search  for  truth,  and  those  who  voluntarily 
undertake  to  do  so  are  always  few.  To  the  world  at 
large  it  seems  quite  easy  to  find  truth,  and  inexcusable 
to  miss  it.  And  no  wonder  !  For  by  finding  truth  they 
mean  only  learning  by  rote  the  maxims  current  among 
them."  "  Maxims  and  first  principles,"  says  Pascal,  "  are 
subject  to  revolutions ;  and  we  are  to  go  to  chronology 
for  the  epochs  of  right  and  wrong.  A  very  humorsome 
justice  this,  which  is  bounded  by  a  river  or  a  mountain 
orthodoxy  on  one  side  of  the  Pyrenees  may  be  heresy  on 


RELIGION.  361 

the  other,"  "  Let  there,"  begs  the  Spanish  President 
Castelar,  "  be  no  more  accursed  races  on  the  earth.  Let 
every  one  act  according  to  his  conscience,  and  communi- 
cate freely  with  his  God.  Let  thought  be  only  corrected 
by  the  contradiction  of  thought.  Let  error  be  an  infirm- 
ity, and  not  a  crime.  Let  us  agree  in  acknowledging  that 
opinions  sometimes  take  possession  of  our  understand- 
ings quite  independent  of  our  will  or  desire.  Let  us  be 
so  just  as  to  be  enabled  to  see  even  to  what  degree  each 
race  has  contributed  to  the  universal  education  of  hu- 
manity." 

"  Every  new  idea,"  says  a  writer  in  The  Quarterly  Re- 
view, "  creates  an  enthusiasm  in  the  minds  of  those  who 
have  first  grasped  it,  which  renders  them  incapable  of 
viewing  it  in  its  true  proportions  to  the  sum  total  of  knowl- 
edge. It  is  in  their  eyes  no  new  denizen  of  the  world  of 
facts,  but  a  heaven-sent  ruler  of  it,  to  which  all  previously 
recognized  truths  must  be  made  to  bow.  As  time  goes 
on,  truer  views  obtain.  The  new  principle  ceases  to  be 
regarded  either  as  a  pestilent  delusion  or  as  a  key  to  all 
mysteries.  Its  application  comes  to  be  better  defined 
and  its  value  more  reasonably  appreciated,  when  both 
idolaters  and  iconoclasts  have  passed  away,  and  a  new 
generation  begins  to  take  stock  of  its  intellectual  inherit- 
ance." 

"  The  truth,"  said  Goethe,  "  must  be  repeated  over  and 
over  again,  because  error  is  repeatedly  preached  among 
us,  not  only  by  individuals,  but  by  the  masses.  In  peri- 
odicals and  cyclopedias,  in  schools  and  universities,  every- 
where, in  fact,  error  prevails,  and  is  quite  easy  in  the  feel- 
ing that  it  has  quite  a  majority  on  its  side."  "  Public 
opinion,  of  which  we  hear  so  much,"  said  a  writer  in 
Blackwood,  long  ago,  "  is  never  anything  else  than  the 
reecho  of  the  thought  of  a  few  great  men  half  a  century 
before.  It  takes  that  time  for  ideas  to  flow  down  from 
the  elevated  to  the  inferior  level.     The  great  never  adopt, 


362  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

they  only  originate.  Their  chief  efforts  are  always  made 
in  opposition  to  the  prevailing  opinions  by  which  they  are 
surrounded.  Thence  it  is  that  a  powerful  mind  is  always 
uneasy  when  it  is  not  in  the  minority  on  any  subject  which 
excites  general  attention."  "If  you  discover  a  truth," 
says  an  unknown  author,  "  you  are  persecuted  by  an  in- 
finite number  of  people  who  gain  their  living  from  the 
error  you  oppose,  saying  that  this  error  itself  is  the  truth, 
and  that  the  greatest  error  is  that  which  tends  to  destroy 
it."  "  There  arose  no  small  stir"  at  Ephesus  on  account 
of  Paul's  preaching.  "  For  a  certain  man  named  Deme- 
trius, a  silversmith,  which  made  silver  shrines  for  Diana, 
brought  no  small  gain  unto  the  craftsmen ;  whom  he 
called  together  with  the  workmen  of  like  occupation,  and 
said.  Sirs,  ye  know  that  by  this  craft  we  have  our  wealth : 
moreover,  ye  see  and  hear,  that  not  alone  at  Ephesus,  but 
almost  throughout  all  Asia,  this  Paul  hath  persuaded  and 
turned  away  much  people,  saying  that  they  be  no  gods 
which  are  made  with  hands.  So  that  not  only  this  our 
craft  is  in  danger  to  be  set  at  naught ;  but  also  that  the 
temple  of  the  great  goddess  Diana  should  be  despised, 
and  her  magnificence  should  be  destroyed,  whom  all  Asia 
and  the  world  worshipeth.  And  when  they  heard  these 
sayings,  they  were  full  of  wrath,  and  cried  out,  saying, 
Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians." 

Thomas  Aikenhead,  a  student  of  eighteen,  was  hanged 
at  Edinburgh,  in  1697,  ^°^  having  uttered,  says  Macaulay, 
in  his  History,  free  opinions  about  the  Trinity  and  some 
of  the  books  of  the  Bible.  His  offense  was  construed  as 
blasphemy  under  an  old  Scotch  statute,  which  was  strained 
for  the  purpose  of  convicting  him.  After  his  sentence  he 
recanted,  and  begged  a  short  respite  to  make  his  peace 
with  God.  This  the  privy  council  declined  to  grant,  un- 
less the  Edinburgh  clergy  would  intercede  for  him ;  but 
so  far  were  they  from  seconding  his  petition,  that  they 
actually  demanded  that  his  execution  should  not  be  de« 


RELIGION.  363 

layed.  "  Imagine,  if  you  can,"  says  Froude,  in  one  of 
his  essays,  "a  person  being  now  put  to  death  for  a  specu- 
lative theological  opinion.  You  feel  at  once  that,  in  the 
most  bigoted  country  in  the  world,  such  a  thing  has  be- 
come impossible  ;  and  the  impossibility  is  the  measure  of 
the  alteration  which  we  have  all  undergone.  The  formu- 
las remain  as  they  were,  on  either  side,  —  the  very  same 
formulas  which  were  once  supposed  to  require  these  de- 
testable murders.  But  we  have  learned  to  know  each 
other  better.  The  cords  which  bind  together  the  brother- 
hood of  mankind  are  woven  of  a  thousand  strands.  We 
do  not  any  more  fly  apart  or  become  enemies  because, 
here  and  there,  in  one  strand  out  of  so  many,  there  are 
still  unsound  places." 

It  was  in  the  Star  Chamber  (during  the  reign  of  Charles 
I.,  after  Christ,  sixteen  hundred  and  thirty-seven  years) 
that  Leighton,  a  clergyman,  for  coarse  invectives  against 
prelacy  and  prelates,  received  the  sentence  by  which,  he 
was  severely  whipped  in  public,  was  put  in  the  pillory, 
had  one  ear  cut  off,  one  side  of  his  nose  slit,  and  one 
cheek  branded  with  the  letters  S.  S.,  to  denote  that  he 
was  a  sower  of  sedition.  "  On  that  day  week,"  says 
Laud  (then  Archbishop  of  Canterbury),  who  instigated 
the  prosecution,  "  the  sores  upon  his  back,  ear,  nose,  and 
face  being  not  cured,  he  was  whipped  again  at  the  pillory, 
and  there  had  the  remainder  of  his  sentence  executed 
upon  him,  by  cutting  off  the  other  ear,  slitting  the  other 
side  of  his  nose,  and  branding  the  other  cheek."  He 
was,  in  addition,  degraded  from  his  ministry,  fined  ten 
thousand  pounds,  and  ordered  to  be  retained  in  confine- 
ment for  life. 

"There  is  a  violent  zeal,"  says  F^nelon,  "that  we  must 
correct ;  it  thinks  it  can  change  the  whole  world,  it  would 
reform  everything,  it  would  subject  every  one  to  its  laws. 
The  origin  of  this  zeal  is  disgraceful.  The  defects  of  our 
neighboi  interfere  with  our  own  ;  our  vanity  is  wounded 


364  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

by  that  of  another ;  our  own  haughtiness  finds  our  neigh- 
bor's ridiculous  and  insupportable ;  our  restlessness  is 
rebuked  by  the  sluggishness  and  indolence  of  this  person ; 
our  gloom  is  disturbed  by  the  gayety  and  frivolities  of 
that  person,  and  our  heedlessness  by  the  shrewdness  and 
address  of  another.  If  we  were  faultless,  we  should  not 
be  so  much  annoyed  by  the  defects  of  those  with  whom 
we  associate.  If  we  were  to  acknowledge  honestly  that 
we  have  not  virtue  enough  to  bear  patiently  with  our 
neighbors'  weaknesses,  we  should  show  our  own  imper- 
fection, and  this  alarms  our  vanity.  We  therefore  make 
our  weakness  pass  for  strength,  elevate  it  to  a  virtue  and 
call  it  zeal ;  an  imaginary  and  often  hypocritical  zeal. 
For  is  it  not  surprising  to  see  how  tranquil  we  are  about 
the  errors  of  others  when  they  do  not  trouble  us,  and  how 
soon  this  wonderful  zeal  kindles  against  those  who  excite 
our  jealousy,  or  weary  our  patience  ?  "  "  We  reprove  our 
friends'  faults,"  said  Wycherley,  "  more  out  of  pride  than 
love  or  charity- ;  not  so  much  to  correct  them  as  to  make 
them  believe  we  are  ourselves  without  them."  Simonides 
satirizes  the  same  infirmity  in  a  fable,  to  be  found  in  the 
treasures  of  Athenaeus  :  — 

With  his  claw  the  snake  surprising, 
Thus  the  crab  kept  moralizing  :  — 
"  Out  on  sidelong  turns  and  graces, 
Straight 's  the  word  for  honest  paces  !  " 

It  was  Dean  Swift  who  said,  "  We  have  just  enough  of 
religion  to  make  us  hate,  but  not  enough  to  make  us 
love,  one  another."  "  Your  business,"  said  Hunt,  "  is  to 
preach  love  to  your  neighbor,  to  kick  him  to  bits,  and  to 
thank  God  for  the  contradiction."  "  The  falsehood  that 
the  tongue  commits,"  said  Landor,  "is  slight  in  compari- 
son with  what  is  conceived  by  the  heart,  and  executed  by 
the  whole  man,  throughout  life.  If,  professing  love  and 
charity  to  the  human  race  at  large,  I  quarrel  day  after 
day  with  my  next  neighbor  j  if,  professing  that  the  rich 


RELIGION.  365 

can  never  see  God,  I  spend  in  the  luxuries  of  my  house- 
hold a  talent  monthly;  if,  professing  to  place  so  much 
confidence  in  his  word,  that,  in  regard  to  worldly  weal, 
I  need  take  no  care  for  to-morrow,  I  accumulate  stores 
even  beyond  what  would  be  necessary  though  I  quite  dis- 
trusted both  his  providence  and  his  veracity  ;  if,  profess- 
ing that  *  he  who  giveth  to  the  poor  lendeth  to  the  Lord,' 
I  question  the  Lord's  security,  and  haggle  with  him  about 
the  amount  of  the  loan  ;  if,  professing  that  I  am  the  ir 
steward,  I  keep  ninety-nine  parts  in  the  hundred  as  the 
emolument  of  my  stewardship :  how,  when  God  hates 
liars,  and  punishes  defrauders,  shall  I,  and  other  such 
thieves  and  hypocrites,  fare  hereafter  ? "  In  one  of  his 
chapters  on  the  Study  of  Sociology,  Herbert  Spencer  re- 
marks that  "  it  would  clear  up  our  ideas  about  many 
things,  if  we  distinctly  recognized  the  truth  that  we  have 
two  religions."  These  two  religions  Mr.  Spencer  desig- 
nates as  the  "  religion  of  amity "  and  the  "  religion  of 
enmity."  "  Of  course,"  he  says,  "  I  don't  mean  that 
these  are  both  called  religions.  Here  I  am  not  speaking 
of  names  ;  I  am  speaking  simply  of  things.  Nowadays 
men  do  not  pay  the  same  nominal  homage  to  the  religion 
of  enmity  that  they  do  to  the  religion  of  amity  —  the  re- 
ligion of  amity  occupies  the  place  of  honor.  But  the  real 
homage  is  paid  in  large  measure,  if  not  in  the  larger 
measure,  to  the  religion  of  enmity.  The  religion  of 
enmity  nearly  all  men  actually  believe.  The  religion  of 
amity  most  of  them  merely  believe  they  believe."  "  The 
Church  of  Rome,"  said  F.  W.  Robertson,  in  his  sermon 
ti  The  Tongue,  "  hurls  her  thunders  against  Protestants 
cf  every  denomination  ;  the  Calvinist  scarcely  recognizes 
the  Arminian  as  a  Christian  ;  he  who  considers  himself 
as  the  true  Anglican  excludes  from  the  church  of  Christ 
all  but  the  adherents  of  his  own  orthodoxy  ;  every  minis- 
ter and  congregation  has  its  small  circle,  beyond  which 
all  are  heretics ;  nay,  even  among  that  sect  which  is  most 


366  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

lax  as  to  the  dogmatic  forms  of  truth,  we  find  the  Unita- 
rian of  the  old  school  denouncing  the  spiritualism  of  the 
new  and  rising  school.  Sisters  of  Charity  refuse  to  per- 
mit an  act  of  charity  to  be  done  by  a  Samaritan  ;  minis- 
ters of  the  gospel  fling  the  thunder-bolts  of  the  Lordj 
ignorant  hearers  catch  and  exaggerate  the  spirit  ]  boys, 
girls,  and  women  shudder  as  one  goes  by,  perhaps  more 
holy  than  themselves,  who  adores  the  same  God,  believes 
in  the  same  Redeemer,  struggles  in  the  same  life-battle 
—  and  all  this  because  they  have  been  taught  to  look 
upon  him  as  an  enemy  of  God."  "  Particular  churches 
and  sects,"  says  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  "usurp  the  gates  of 
heaven,  and  turn  the  keys  against  each  other ;  and  thus 
we  go  to  heaven  against  each  others'  wills,  conceits,  and 
opinions."  "The  church  of  the  future,"  in  the  opinion  of 
Father  Hyacinthe,  "will  know  nothing  of  such  divisions, 
such  discordances,  and  she  will  uphold  the  freedom  of 
theologies  and  the  diversity  of  rites  in  the  unity  of  one 
faith  and  of  one  worship."  "  As  soon,"  said  Goethe,  "  as 
the  pure  doctrine  and  love  of  Christ  are  comprehended 
m  their  true  nature,  and  have  become  a  vital  principle, 
we  shall  feel  ourselves  as  human  beings,  great  and  free, 
and  not  attach  especial  importance  to  a  degree  more  or 
less  in  the  outward  forms  of  religion  :  besides,  we  shall 
all  gradually  advance  from  a  Christianity  of  words  and 
faith  to  a  Christianity  of  feeling  and  action."  "Could 
we,"  said  Dean  Young,  "  but  once  descend  from  our  high 
pretenses  of  religion  to  the  humility  that  only  makes  men 
religious,  could  we  but  once  prefer  Christianity  itself  be- 
fore the  several  factions  that  bear  its  name,  our  differ- 
ences would  sink  of  themselves  ;  and  it  would  appear  to 
us  that  there  is  more  religion  in  not  contending  than 
there  is  in  the  matter  we  contend  about."  "  Do  you  re- 
member," asks  the  author  of  The  Eclipse  of  Faith,  "  the 
passage  in  Woodstock,  in  which  our  old  favorite  repre- 
sents the  Episcopalian  Rochecltffe  and  the  Presbyterian 


RELIGION.  367 

Holdenough  meeting  unexpectedly  in  prison,  after  many 
years  of  separation,  during  which  one  had  thought  the 
other  dead?  How  sincerely  glad  they  were,  and  how 
pleasantly  they  talked  ;  when,  lo  !  an  unhappy  reference 
to  '  the  bishopric  of  Titus '  gradually  abated  the  fervor  of 
their  charity,  and  inflamed  that  of  their  zeal,  even  till 
they  at  last  separated  in  mutual  dudgeon,  and  sat  glower- 
ing at  each  other  in  their  distant  corners  with  looks  in 
which  the  '  Episcopalian  '  and  '  Presbyterian  '  were  much 
more  evident  than  the  '  Christian  : '  and  so  they  j>erse- 
vered  till  the  sudden  summons  to  them  and  their  fellow- 
prisoners,  to  prepare  for  instant  execution,  dissolved  as 
with  a  charm  the  anger  they  had  felt,  and  '  Forgive  me, 
O  my  brother,'  and  '  I  have  sinned  against  thee,  my 
brother,'  broke  from  their  lips  as  they  took  what  they 
thought  would  be  a  last  farewell."  "  I  sometimes,"  says 
Froude,  "  in  impatient  moments,  wish  the  laity  would 
treat  their  controversial  divines  as  two  gentlemen  once 
treated  their  seconds,  when  they  found  themselves  forced 
into  a  duel  without  knowing  what  they  were  quarreling 
about.  As  the  principals  were  being  led  up  to  their 
places,  one  of  them  whispered  to  the  other,  '  If  you  will 
shoot  your  second,  I  will  shoot  mine.'  " 

Benjamin  Lay,  a  violent  enthusiast  and  harsh  reformer 
■ — contemporary  with  John  Woolman  —  was,  it  is  said, 
well  acquainted  with  Dr.  Franklin,  who  sometimes  visited 
him.  Among  other  schemes  of  reform  he  entertained  the 
idea  of  converting  all  mankind  to  Christianity.  This  was 
to  be  done  by  three  persons  —  himself  and  two  other 
enthusiasts,  assisted  by  Dr.  Franklin.  But  on  their  first 
meeting  at  the  doctor's  house,  the  three  "  chosen  ves- 
sels "  got  into  a  violent  controversy  on  points  of  doctrine, 
and  separated  in  ill-humor.  The  philosopher,  who  had 
been  an  amused  listener,  advised  the  three  sages  to  give 
up  the  project  of  converting  the  world  until  they  had 
'earned  to  tolerate  each  other. 


368  IJBRARY  NOTES. 

"  Man,"  says  Harrington,  in  his  Political  Aphorisms, 
"  may  rather  be  defined  a  religious  than  a  rational  creat- 
ure, in  regard  that  in  other  creatures  there  may  be  some- 
thing of  reason,  but  there  is  nothing  of  religion."  "  If 
you  travel  through  the  world  well,"  says  Plutarch,  "you 
may  find  cities  without  walls,  without  literature,  without 
kings,  moneyless,  and  such  as  desire  no  coin ;  which 
know  not  what  theatres  or  public  halls  of  bodily  exercise 
mean ;  but  never  was  there,  nor  ever  shall  there  be,  any 
one  city  seen  without  temple,  church,  or  chapel ;  with- 
out some  god  or  other ;  which  useth  no  prayers  nor 
oaths,  no  prophecies  and  divinations,  no  sacrifices,  either 
to  obtain  good  blessings  or  to  avert  heavy  curses  and 
calamities.  Nay,  methinks  a  man  should  sooner  find 
a  city  built  in  the  air,  without  any  plot  of  ground  whereon 
it  is  seated,  than  that  any  commonwealth  altogether  void 
of  religion  and  the  opinion  of  the  gods  should  either  be 
first  established,  or  afterward  preserved  and  maintained 
in  that  estate.  This  is  that  containeth  and  holdeth  to- 
gether all  human  society ;  this  is  the  foundation,  prop, 
and  stay  of  all." 

The  holy  Nanac  on  the  ground  one  day, 
Reclining  with  his  feet  toward  Mecca,  lay; 
A  passing  Moslem  priest,  offended,  saw, 
And  flaming  for  the  honor  of  his  law, 
Exclaimed  :  "  Base  infidel,  thy  prayers  repeat  I 
Toward  Allah's  house  how  dar'st  thou  turn  thy  feet  f  " 
Before  the  Moslem's  shallow  accents  died, 
The  pious  but  indignant  Nanac  cried  : 
"  And  turn  them,  if  thou  canst,  toward  any  spot, 
Wherein  the  awful  house  of  God  is  not !  " 

"  How  Striking  a  proof  is  it,"  says  a  writer  on  The 
Religions  of  India,  "  of  the  strength  of  the  adoring  prin- 
ciple in  human  nature  —  what  an  illustration  of  man- 
kind's sense  of  .dependence  upon  an  unseen  Supreme — • 
that  the  grandest  works  which  the  nations  have  reared  are 
those  connected  with  religion  !     Were  a  spirit  from  some 


RELIGION.  369 

distant  world  to  look  down  upon  the  surface  of  our  planet 
as  it  spins  round  in  the  solar  rays,  his  eye  would  be  most 
attracted,  as  the  morning  light  passed  onward,  by  the 
glittering  and  painted  pagodas  of  China,  Borneo,  and 
Japan  ;  the  richly  ornamented  temples  and  stupendous 
rock  shrines  of  India  ;  the  dome-topped  mosques  and  tall, 
slender  minarets  of  Western  Asia ;  the  pyramids  and  vast 
temples  of  Egypt,  with  their  mile-long  avenues  of  gigantic 
statues  and  sphinxes ;  the  graceful  shrines  of  classic 
Greece ;  the  basilicas  of  Rome  and  Byzantium  ;  the  semi- 
oriental  church-domes  of  Moscow ;  the  Gothic  cathedrals 
of  Western  Europe  :  and  as  the  day  closed,  the  light 
would  fall  dimly  upon  the  ruins  of  the  grand  sun  temples 
of  Mexico  and  Peru,  where,  in  the  infancy  of  reason  and 
humanity,  human  sacrifices  were  offered  up,  as  if  the  All- 
Father  were  pleased  with  the  agony  of  his  creatures  !  " 

"  Moral  rules,"  says  Matthew  Arnold,  in  his  Essay  on 
Marcus  Aurelius,  "  apprehended  as  ideas  first,  and  then 
rigorously  followed  as  laws,  are  and  must  be  for  the  sage 
only.  The  mass  of  mankind  have  neither  force  of  intel- 
lect enough  to  apprehend  them  clearly  as  ideas,  nor  force 
of  character  enough  to  follow  them  strictly  as  laws.  The 
mass  of  mankind  can  be  carried  along  a  course  full  of 
hardships  for  the  natural  man,  can  be  borne  over  the 
thousand  impediments  of  the  narrow  way,  only  by  the  tide 
of  a  joyful  and  bounding  emotion.  It  is  impossible  to 
rise  from  reading  Epictetus  or  Marcus  Aurelius  without 
a  sense  of  constraint  and  melancholy,  without  feeling  that 
the  burden  laid  upon  man  is  well-nigh  greater  than  he 
can  bear.  Honor  to  the  sages  who  have  felt  this,  and  yet 
aave  borne  it !  .  ,  .  .  For  the  ordinary  man,  this  sense 
of  labor  and  sorrow  constitutes  an  absolute  disqualifica- 
tion ;  it  paralyzes  him ;  under  the  weight  of  it  he  cannot 
make  way  toward  the  goal  at  all.  The  paramount  firtue 
of  religion  is  that  it  has  lighted  up  morality ;  that  it  has 
supplied  the  emotion  and  inspiration  needful  for  carrying 
24 


370  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

the  sage  along  the  narrow  way  perfectly,  for  carrying  the 
ordinary  man  along  it  at  all.  Even  the  religions  with  most 
dross  in  them  have  had  something  of  this  virtue  ;  but  the 
Christian  religion  manifests  it  with  unexampled  splen- 
dor." The  Duke  de  Chaulnes  once  said  to  Dr.  Johnson 
that  "  every  religion  had  a  certain  degree  of  morality  in 
it."  "Ay,  my  lord,"  answered  he,  "but  the  Christian  re- 
ligion alone  puts  it  on  its  proper  basis."  "  It  is  Chris- 
tianity alone,"  said  Max  Miiller,  "which,  as  the  religion 
of  humanity,  as  the  religion  of  no  caste,  of  no  chosen  peo- 
ple, has  taught  us  to  respect  the  history  of  humanity  as  a 
whole,  to  discover  the  traces  of  a  divine  wisdom  and  love 
in  the  government  of  all  the  races  of  mankind,  and  to 
recognize,  if  possible,  even  in  the  lowest  and  crudest 
forms  of  religious  belief,  not  the  work  of  demoniacal 
agencies,  but  something  that  indicates  a  divine  guidance, 
something  that  makes  us  perceive,  with  St.  Peter,  '  that 
God  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  but  that  in  every  nation 
he  that  feareth  Him  and  worketh  righteousness  is  ac- 
cepted with  Him.'  "  "  There  is  a  principle,"  said  John 
Woolman  —  "  the  man  who,"  it  is  said,  "  in  all  the  cent- 
uries since  the  advent  of  Christ,  lived  nearest  to  the  Di- 
vine pattern  "  —  "  there  is  a  principle,"  said  that  Chris- 
tian man,  "which  is  pure,  placed  in  the  human  mind, 
which  in  different  places  and  ages  hath  had  different 
names  ;  it  is,  however,  pure,  and  proceeds  from  God.  It 
is  deep  and  inward,  confined  to  no  forms  of  religion  nor 
excluded  from  any,  when  the  heart  stands  in  perfect  sin- 
cerity. In  whomsoever  this  takes  root  and  grows,  they 
become  brethren." 

"  The  turning-point,"  remarks  Frances  Power  Cobbe, 
"between  the  old  world  and  the  new  was  tbe  beginning 
et  the  Christian  movement.  The  action  upon  human 
nature,  which  started  on  its  new  course,  was  the  teaching 
and  example  of  Christ.  Christ  was  he  who  opened  the 
age  of  endless  progress.     The  old  worid  grew  from  with- 


RELIGION.  371 

out,  and  was  outwardly  symmetric.  The  new  one  grows 
from  within,  and  is  not  symmetric,  nor  ever  will  be ;  bear- 
ing in  its  heart  the  germ  of  an  everlasting,  unresting  prog- 
ress. The  old  world  built  its  temples,  hewed  its  statues, 
framed  its  philosophies,  and  wrote  its  glorious  epics  and 
dramas,  so  that  nothing  might  evermore  be  added  to 
them.  The  new  world  made  its  art,  its  philosophy,  its 
poetry,  all  imperfect,  yet  instinct  with  a  living  spirit  be- 
yond the  old.  To  the  Parthenon  not  a  stone  could  be 
added  from  the  hour  of  its  completion.  To  Milan  and 
Cologne  altar  and  chapel,  statue  and  spire,  will  be  added 
through  the  ages.  Christ  was  not  merely  a  moral  re- 
former, inculcating  pure  ethics  ;  not  merely  a  religious  re- 
former, clearing  away  old  theological  errors  and  teaching 
higher  ideas  of  God.  These  things  He  was  ;  but  He 
might,  for  all  we  can  tell,  have  been  them  both  as  fully, 
and  yet  have  failed  to  be  what  He  has  actually  been  to 
our  race.  He  might  have  taught  the  world  better  ethics 
and  better  theology,  and  yet  have  failed  to  infuse  into  it 
♦■hat  new  tide  which  has  ever  since  coursed  through  its 
arteries  and  penetrated  its  minutest  veins.  What  Christ 
has  really  done  is  beyond  the  kingdom  of  the  intellect 
and  its  theologies  ;  nay,  even  beyond  the  kingdom  of  the 
conscience  and  its  recognition  of  duty.  His  work  has 
been  in  that  of  the  heart.  He  has  transformed  the  law 
into  the  gospel.  He  has  changed  the  bondage  of  the 
alien  for  the  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God.  He  has  glori- 
fied virtue  into  holiness,  religion  into  piety,  and  duty  into 
love."  His  was  "  a  religion,"  says  Jeremy  Taylor,  "  that 
taught  men  to  be  meek  and  humble,  apt  to  receive  in- 
juries, but  unapt  to  do  any ;  a  religion  that  gave  coun- 
tenance to  the  poor  and  pitiful,  in  a  time  when  riches 
were  adored,  and  ambition  and  pleasure  had  possessed 
the  heart  of  all  mankind  ;  a  religion  that  would  change 
the  face  of  things  and  the  hearts  of  men,  and  break  vile 
habits  into  gentleness  and  counsel."     "  Christianity  has 


372  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

that  in  it,"  says  Steele,  in  the  Christian  Hero,  "  which 
makes  men  pity,  not  scorn  the  wicked ;  and,  by  a  beauti- 
ful kind  of  ignorance  of  themselves,  think  those  wretches 
their  equals."  "  Great  and  multiform,"  observes  Lecky, 
in  his  History  of  European  Morals,  —  summing  up  some 
of  the  results  of  Christianity,  —  "  great  and  multiform  have 
been  the  influences  of  Christian  philanthropy.  The  high 
conception  that  has  been  formed  of  the  sanctity  of  human 
life,  the  protection  of  infancy,  the  elevation  and  final 
emancipation  of  the  slave  classes,  the  suppression  of  bar- 
barous games,  the  creation  of  a  vast  and  multifarious 
organization  of  charity,  and  the  education  of  the  imagina- 
tion by  the  Christian  type,  constituted  together  a  move- 
ment of  philanthropy  which  has  never  been  paralleled  or 
approached  in  the  pagan  world." 

"  If  there  be  any  good  in  thee,"  says  the  author  of  the 
Imitation,  "believe  that  there  is  much  more  in  others, 
that  so  thou  mayest  preserve  humility.  It  hurteth  thee 
not  to  submit  to  all  men ;  but  it  hurteth  thee  most  of  all 
to  prefer  thyself  even  to  one."  Sir  Henry  Wotton  being 
asked  if  he  thought  a  Papist  could  be  saved,  replied, 
"  You  may  be  saved  without  knowing  that."  "  Be  as- 
sured," said  Dean  Young,  "there  can  be  but  little  honesty 
without  thinking  as  well  as  possible  of  others ;  and  there 
can  be  no  safety  without  thinking  humbly  and  distrust- 
fully of  ourselves."  "  It  is  easy,"  said  Peterborough,  in 
Imaginary  Conversations,  "  to  look  down  on  others ;  to 
look  down  on  ourselves  is  the  difficulty."  "  The  charac- 
ter of  a  wise  man,"  says  Confucius,  "  consists  in  three 
things  :  to  do  himself  what  he  tells  others  to  do  ;  to  act 
on  no  occasion  contrary  to  justice  ;  and  to  bear  with  the 
weaknesses  of  those  around  him.  Treat  inferiors  as  if 
you  might  one  day  be  in  the  hands  of  a  master."  "  I  rec- 
ollect," says  Saadi,  "the  verse  which  the  elephant-driver 
rehearsed  on  the  banks  of  the  river  Nile  :  '  If  you  are 
ignorant  of  the  state  of  the  ant  under  your  foot,  know 


RELIGION.  373 

that  it  resembles  your  own  condition  under  the  foot  of 
the  elephant.'  "  The  stable  of  Confucius  being  burned 
down,  when  he  was  at  court,  on  his  return  he  said,  "  Has 
any  man  been  hurt  ?  "  He  did  not  ask  about  the  horses. 
Of  the  death  of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley,  his  butler  (Addi- 
son himself)  wrote  to  The  Spectator :  "  I  am  afraid  he 
caught  his  death  the  last  county-sessions,  where  he  would 
go  to  see  justice  done  to  a  poor  widow  woman,  and  her 
fatherless  children,  that  had  been  wronged  by  a  neighbor- 
ing gentleman  ;  for  you  know,  sir,  my  good  master  was 
always  the  poor  man's  friend."  Fenelon  had  a  habit  of 
bringing  into  his  palace  the  wretched  inhabitants  of  the 
country,  whom  the  war  had  driven  from  their  homes,  and 
taking  care  of  them,  and  feeding  them  at  his  own  table. 
Seeing  one  day  that  one  of  these  peasants  eat  nothing, 
he  asked  him  the  reason  of  his  abstinence.  "  Alas  !  my 
lord,"  said  the  poor  man,  "in  making  my  escape  from  my 
cottage,  I  had  not  time  to  bring  off  my  cow,  which  was  the 
support  of  my  family.  The  enemy  will  drive  her  away, 
and  I  shall  never  find  another  so  good."  Fenelon,  avail- 
ing himself  of  his  privilege  of  safe-conduct,  immediately 
set  out,  accompanied  by  a  servant,  and  drove  the  cow 
back  himself  to  the  peasant.  A  literary  man,  whpse  li- 
brary was  destroyed  by  fire,  has  been  deservedly  admired 
for  saying,  "  I  should  have  profited  but  little  by  my  books, 
if  they  had  not  taught  me  how  to  bear  the  loss  of  them." 
The  remark  of  Fenelon,  who  lost  his  in  a  similar  way,  is 
still  more  simple  and  touching.  "  I  would  much  rather 
they  were  burnt  than  the  cottage  of  a  poor  peasant." 
Lord  Peterborough  said  of  Fdnelon,  **  He  was  a  delicious 
creature.  I  was  obliged  to  get  away  from  him,  or  he 
would  have  made  me  pious."  The  influence  of  such  a 
character  brings  to  mind  another  passage  from  Saadi. 
**  One  day,"  he  says,  "  as  I  was  in  the  bath,  a  friend  of 
mine  put  into  my  hand  a  piece  of  scented  clay.  I  took 
it,  and  said  to  it,  *  Art  thou  of  heaven  or  earth  ?  for  I  am 


374  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

charmed  with  thy  delightful  scent'  It  answered,  *  I  was 
a  despicable  piece  of  clay  ;  but  I  was  some  time  in  com- 
pany of  the  rose  :  the  sweet  quality  of  my  companion  was 
communicated  to  me  ;  otherwise  I  should  have  remained 
only  what  I  appear  to  be,  a  bit  of  earth.'  " 

"  If  thou  canst  not  make  thyself  such  an  one  as  thou 
wouldst,"  quoting  the  Imitation  of  Christ,  "how  canst  thou 
expect  to  have  another  in  all  things  to  thy  liking,?  We 
would  willingly  have  others  perfect,  and  yet  we  amend 
not  our  own  faults.  We  would  have  others  severely  cor- 
rected, and  will  not  be  corrected  ourselves.  The  large 
liberty  of  others  displeaseth  us  ;  and  yet  we  will  not  have 
our  own  desires  denied  us.  We  will  have  others  kept 
undei  by  strict  laws  ;  but  in  no  sort  will  ourselves  be  re- 
strained. And  thus  it  appeareth  how  seldom  we  weigh 
our  neighbor  in  the  same  balance  with  ourselves."  Re- 
calling the  apologue  from  Phaedrus,  paraphrased  by  Bul- 
wer :  — 

"  From  our  necks,  when  life's  journey  begins, 

Two  sacks,  Jove,  the  Father,  suspends, 
The  one  holds  our  own  proper  sins. 

The  other  the  sins  of  our  friends  : 

^      "  The  first,  Man  immediately  throws 

Out  of  sight,  out  of  mind,  at  his  back ; 
The  last  is  so  under  his  nose. 
He  sees  every  grain  in  the  sack." 

Addison,  in  one  of  the  papers  of  The  Spectator,  en- 
larges upon  the  thought  of  Socrates,  that  if  all  the  mis- 
fortunes of  mankind  were  cast  into  a  public  stock,  in  order 
to  be  equally  distributed  among  the  w^hole  species,  those 
who  now  think  themselves  the  most  unhappy  would  pre- 
fer the  share  they  are  already  possessed  of  before  that 
which  would  fall  to  them  by  such  a  division  —  by  imagin- 
ing a  proclamation  made  by  Jupiter,  that  every  mortal 
should  bring  in  his  griefs  and  calamities,  and  throw  them 
in  a  heap.     There  was  a  large  plain  appointed  for  this 


RELIGION.  375 

purpose.  He  took  his  stand  in  the  centre  of  it,  and  saw 
the  whole  human  species  marching  one  after  another,  and 
throwing  down  their  several  loads,  which  immediately 
grew  up  into  a  prodigious  mountain,  that  seemed  to  rise 
above  the  clouds.  He  observed  one  bringing  in  a  bundle 
very  carefully  concealed  under  an  old  embroidered  cloak, 
which,  upon  his  throwing  into  the  heap,  he  discovered  to 
be  poverty.  Another,  after  a  great  deal  of  puffing,  threw 
down  his  luggage,  which,  upon  examining,  he  found  to  be 
his  wife.  He  saw  multitudes  of  old  women  throw  down 
their  wrinkles,  and  several  young  ones  strip  themselves  of 
their  tawny  skins.  There  were  very  great  heaps  of  red 
noses,  large  lips,  and  rusty  teeth,  —  in  truth,  he  was  sur- 
prised to  see  the  greatest  part  of  the  mountain  made  up 
of  bodily  deformities.  Observing  one  advancing  toward 
the  heap  with  a  larger  cargo  than  ordinary  upon  his  back, 
he  found  upon  his  near  approach  that  it  was  only  a  natu- 
ral hump,  which  he  disposed  of  with  great  joy  of  heart 
among  the  collection  of  human  miseries.  But  what  most 
surprised  him  of  all  was  that  there  was  not  a  single  vice 
or  folly  thrown  in  the  whole  heap ;  at  which  he  was  very 
much  astonished,  having  concluded  with  himself  that 
every  one  would  take  this  opportunity  of  getting  rid  of 
his  passions,  prejudices,  and  frailties. 

"Passions,  prejudices,  and  frailties!"  "There  is  no 
man  so  good,"  says  Montaigne,  "who,  were  he  to  submit 
all  his  thoughts  and  actions  to  the  laws,  would  not  deserve 
hanging  ten  times  in  his  life.  [Talleyrand,  when  Rulhi^re 
said  he  had  been  guilty  of  only  one  wickedness  in  his  life, 
asked,  "  When  will  it  end  ?  "]  We  are  so  far  from  being 
good  men,  according  to  the  laws  of  God,  that  we  cannot 
be  so  according  to  our  own  ;  human  wisdom  never  yet 
arrived  at  the  duty  that  it  had  itself  prescribed  ;  and 
could  it  arrive  there,  it  would  still  prescribe  itself  others 
beyond  it,  to  which  it  would  ever  aspire  and  pretend  ;  so 
great  an  enemy  of  consistency  is  our  human  condition." 


37^  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

Of  prejudice  it  has  been  truly  said  by  Basil  Montagu,  in 
a  note  to  one  of  his  publications,  that  "  it  has  the  singu- 
lar ability  of  accommodating  itself  to  all  the  possible  va- 
rieties of  the  human  mind.  Some  passions  and  vices 
are  but  thinly  scattered  among  mankind,  and  find  only 
here  and  there  a  fitness  of  reception.  But  prejudice,  hke 
the  spider,  makes  everywhere  its  home.  It  has  neither 
taste  nor  choice  of  place,  and  all  that  it  requires  is  room. 
There  is  scarcely  a  situation,  except  fire  and  water,  in 
which  a  spider  will  not  live.  So  let  the  mind  be  as  naked 
as  the  walls  of  an  empty  and  forsaken  tenement,  gloomy 
as  a  dungeon,  or  ornamented  with  the  richest  abilities  of 
thinking ;  let  it  be  hot,  cold,  dark  or  light,  lonely  or  in- 
habited, still  prejudice,  if  undisturbed,  will  fill  it  with 
cobwebs,  and  live,  like  the  spider,  where  there  seems 
nothing  to  live  on.  If  the  one  prepares  her  food  by  poi- 
soning it  to  her  palate  and  her  use,  the  other  does  the 
same  ;  and  as  several  of  our  passions  are  strongly  charac- 
terized by  the  animal  world,  prejudice  may  be  denomi- 
nated the  spider  of  the  mind."  "  We  are  all  frail,  but  do 
thou  esteem  none  more  frail  than  thyself."  "Those  many 
that  need  pity,"  says  Jeremy  Taylor,  "and  those  infinities 
of  people  that  refuse  to  pity,  are  miserable  upon  a  several 
charge,  but  yet  they  almost  make  up  all  mankind." 

"  Lord,  what  is  man —  what  the  best  of  men  — but  man 
at  the  best ! "  exclaimed  the  impassioned  and  pious 
Whitefield. 

"  Then  gently  scan  your  brother  man, 

Still  gentler  sister  woman  ; 
Though  they  may  gang  a  kennin  wrang, 

To  step  aside  is  human  : 
One  point  must  still  be  greatly  dark, 

The  moving  why  they  do  it : 
And  just  as  lamely  can  ye  mark, 

How  far  perhaps  they  rue  it. 

"  Who  made  the  heart,  't  is  He  alone 
Decidedly  can  try  us, 


RELIGION.  377 

He  knows  each  chord  —  its  various  tone, 

Each  spring  —  its  various  bias  : 
Then  at  the  balance  let 's  be  mute, 

We  never  can  adjust  it ; 
What 's  done  we  partly  may  compute, 

But  know  not  what 's  resisted." 

It  is  said  that  when  Leonardo  da  Vinci  had  finished 
his  celebrated  picture  of  the  Last  Supper,  he  introduced 
a  friend  to  inspect  the  work  privately,  and  give  his  judg- 
ment concerning  it.  "  Exquisite !  "  exclaimed  his  friend  ; 
"  that  wine-cup  seems  to  stand  out  from  the  table  as  solid, 
glittering  silver."  Thereupon  the  artist  took  a  brush  and 
blotted  out  the  cup,  saying,  "  I  meant  that  the  figure  of 
Christ  should  first  and  mainly  attract  the  observer's  eye, 
and  whatever  diverts  attention  from  him  must  be  blotted 
out."  Could-  we  poor  mortals  just  as  readily  blot  out  of 
our  lives  whatever  diverts  attention  from  the  real  good 
that  is  in  us,  how  differently  would  we  appear  to  others. 

"  Artists,"  says  Hawthorne,  "  are  fond  of  painting  their 
Own  portraits;  and  in  Florence,  there  is  a  gallery  of 
hundreds  of  them,  including  the  most  illustrious,  in  all 
of  which  there  are  autobiographical  characteristics,  so 
to  speak  ;  traits,  expressions,  loftinesses,  and  amenities, 
which  would  have  been  invisible  had  they  not  been 
painted  from  within.  Yet  their  reality  and  truth  are 
none  the  less." 

A  good  woman,  who  had  bred  a  large  family,  and  led 
a  long  life  of  devotion  and  self-sacrifice  —  worn  out  by 
care,  and  weary  of  her  burdens  —  came  at  length  to  what 
was  supposed  to  be  her  death-bed.  A  clergyman  in  the 
neighborhood  thought  it  to  be  his  duty  to  call  upon  her 
He  asked  her  in  usual  language  if  she  had  made  her 
peace  with  her  Maker  ;  to  which  she  replied  that  she  was 
not  aware  that  there  had  been  any  trouble. 

"The  most  important  thing  in  life,"  said  Pascal,  "is 
the  choice  of  a  profession  ;  and  yet  this  is  a  thing  purely 
in  the  disposal  of  chance."     We,  however,  take  little  or 


$y8  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

no  account  of  the  effects  of  particular  professions  or  oc- 
cupations upon  the  mind  and  character,  holding  all  alike 
responsible  for  opinions  and  conduct.  It  does  not  occur 
to  us  as  possible  that  even  suicide  and  murder  may  pri- 
marily result  from  vocation.  Rosch  and  Esquirol  affirm 
from  observation  that  indigo-dyers  become  melancholy; 
and  those  who  dye  scarlet,  choleric. 

Cottle,  the  bookseller,  wrote  with  a  pencil  some  lines 
on  the  wall  of  the  room  in  Bristol,  Newgate,  where  poor 
Savage  died,  which  were  admired  by  Coleridge.  These 
are  two  of  them  :  — 

"  If  some  virtues  in  thy  breast  there  be, 
Ask  if  they  sprang  from  circumstance  or  thee." 

So  much,  alas,  must  be  known  to  judge  of  a  human  life. 
Could  we  only  know  that  we  cannot  know  enough  to 
judge  one  another,  to  say  nothing  of  the  indispensable 
wisdom  that  surpasses  all  knowledge.  Happily,  God  is 
Judge. 

Knowledge,  in  the  common  sense,  as  commonly  ac- 
quired, what  is  it  ? 

Some  need  much  time  to  know  a  little  ;  others  know  at 
a  glance  all  that  they  can.  Cumberland  said  Bubb  Dod- 
dington  was  in  nothing  more  remarkable  than  in  ready 
perspicuity  and  discernment  of  a  subject  thrown  before 
him  on  a  sudden.  "  Take  his  first  thoughts  then,  and  he 
would  charm  you  ;  give  him  time  to  ponder  and  refine, 
you  would  perceive  the  spirit  of  his  sentiments  and  the 
vigor  of  his  genius  evaporate  by  the  process  ;  for  though 
his  first  view  of  the  question  would  be  a  wide  one,  and 
clear  withal,  when  he  came  to  exercise  the  subtlety  of  his 
disquisitional  powers  upon  it,  he  would  so  ingeniously 
dissect  and  break  it  into  fractions,  that  as  an  object, 
when  looked  upon  too  intently  for  a  length  of  time,  grows 
misty  and  confused,  so  would  the  question  under  his  dis- 
cussion when  the  humor  took  him  to  be  hypercritical." 
Coleridge  said  Home  Tooke  "  had  that  clearness  which 


RELIGION. 


379 


is  founded  on  shallowness.  He  doubted  nothinjr,  and 
therefore  gave  you  all  that  he  himself  knew,  or  meant, 
with  great  completeness."  Thucydides  said  of  Themis- 
tocles  that  "  he  had  the  best  judgment  in  actual  cVcum- 
stances,  and  he  formed  his  judgment  with  the  least  delib- 
eration." Quick  or  deliberate,  shallow  or  profound,  all 
are  apt  to  assume  to  know  all,  when  they  may  be  little 
wiser,  in  truth,  than  ^sop's  two  travelers  who  had  visited 
Arabia,  and  were  conversing  together  about  the  chame- 
leon. "  A  very  singular  animal,"  said  one,  "I  never  saw 
one  at  all  like  it  in  my  life.  It  has  the  head  of  a  fish,  its 
body  is  as  thin  as  that  of  a  lizard,  its  pace  is  slow,  its 
color  blue."  "  Stop  there,"  said  the  other,  "  you  are  quite 
mistaken,  the  animal  is  green  ;  I  saw  it  with  my  two 
eyes."  "  I  saw  it  as  well  as  you,"  cried  the  first,  "  and  I 
am  certain  that  it  is  blue."  "I  am  positive  that  it  is 
green."  "And  I  that  it  is  blue."  The  travelers  were 
getting  ver)'  angry  with  each  other,  and  were  about  to 
settle  the  disputed  point  by  blows,  when  happily  a  third 
person  arrived.  "  Well,  gentlemen,  what  is  the  mattei 
here  ?  Calm  yourselves,  I  pray  you."  "  Will  you  be  the 
judge  of  our  quarrel .?  "  "  Yes  ;  what  is  it  ?  "  "  This 
person  maintains  that  the  chameleon  is  green,  while  I 
say  that  it  is  blue."  "  My  dear  sirs,  you  are  both  in  the 
wrong;  the  animal  is  neither  one  nor  the  other  —  it  is 
black."  "  Black  !  you  must  be  jesting !  "  "  Not  at  all, 
I  assure  you  ;  I  have  one  with  me  in  a  box,  and  you 
shall  judge  for  yourselves."  The  box  was  produced  and 
opened,  when,  to  the  surprise  of  all  three,  the  animal  was 
as  yellow  as  gold  !  In  one  of  the  Hindoo  books  we  are 
told  that  in  a  certain  country  there  existed  a  village  of 
the  blind  men.  These  men  had  heard  that  there  was 
an  amazing  animal  called  the  elephant,  but  they  knew 
not  how  to  form  an  idea  of  his  shape.  One  day  an  el- 
ephant happened  to  pass  through  the  place ;  the  villagers 
crowded   to   the   spot  where   this   animal  was   standing. 


380  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

One  of  them  got  hold  of  his  trunk,  another  seized  his 
ear,  another  his  tail,  another  one  of  his  legs,  etc.  After 
thus  trying  to  gratify  their  curiosity,  they  returned  into 
the  village,  and,  sitting  down  together,  they  began  to 
give  their  ideas  of  what  the  elephant  was  like  ;  the  man 
who  had  seized  his  trunk  said  he  thought  the  elephant 
was  like  the  body  of  the  plantain-tree ;  the  man  who 
had  felt  his  ear  said  he  thought  he  was  like  the  fan 
with  which  the  Hindoos  clean  the  rice ;  the  man  who 
had  felt  his  tail  said  he  thought  he  must  be  like  a  snake, 
and  the  man  who  had  seized  his  leg  thought  he  must  be 
like  a  pillar.  An  old  blind  man  of  some  judgment  was 
present,  who  was  greatly  perplexed  how  to  reconcile  these 
jarring  notions  respecting  the  form  of  the  elephant,  but 
he  at  length  said,  "  You  have  all  been  to  examine  this 
animal,  it  is  true,  and  what  you  report  cannot  be  false. 
I  suppose,  therefore,  that  that  which  was  like  the  plan- 
tain-tree must  be  his  trunk  ;  that  which  was  like  a  fan 
must  be  his  ear ;  that  which  was  like  a  snake  must  be  his 
tail,  and  that  which  was  like  a  pillar  must  be  his  body." 
Once  upon  a  time  a  pastor  of  a  village  church  adopted  a 
plan  to  interest  the  members  of  his  flock  in  the  study  of 
the  Bible.  It  was  this  :  "  At  the  Wednesday  evening 
meeting  he  would  announce  the  topic  to  be  discussed  on 
the  ensuing  week,  thus  giving  a  week  for  preparation. 
One  evening  the  subject  was  St.  Paul.  After  the  prelim- 
inary devotional  exercises,  the  pastor  called  upon  one  of 
tlie  deacons  to  *  speak  to  the  question.'  He  immediately 
arose,  and  began  to  describe  the  personal  appearance  of 
the  great  apostle  to  the  Gentiles.  He  said  St.  Paul  was 
a  tall,  rather  spare  man,  with  black  hair  and  eyes,  dark 
complexion,  bilious  temperament,  etc.  His  picture  of 
Paul  was  a  faithful  portrait  of  himself.  He  sat  down, 
and  another  prominent  member  arose  and  said,  '  I  think 
the  brother  preceding  me  has  read  the  Scriptures  to  little 
purpose  if  his  description  of  St.  Paul  is  a  sample  of  his 


RELIGION.  381 

Bible  Knowledge,  St.  Paul  was,  as  I  understand  it,  a 
rather  short,  thick-set  man,  with  sandy  hair,  gray  eyes, 
florid  complexion,  and  a  nervous,  sanguine  temperament,' 
giving,  like  his  predecessor,  an  accurate  picture  of  him- 
self. He  was  followed  by  another  who  had  a  keen  sense 
of  the  ludicrous,  and  who  was  withal  an  inveterate  stam- 
merer. He  said,  '  My  bro-bro-brethren,  I  have  never 
fo-found  in  my  Bi-ble  much  about  the  p-per-personal  ap- 
pe-pearance  of  St.  P-p-paul.  But  one  thing  is  clearly  es- 
tablished, and  tha-that  is,  St.  P-p-paul  had  an  imp-p-pedi- 
ment  in  his  speech,'  " 

"  Having  lived  long,"  said  Dr.  Franklin,  "  I  have  ex- 
perienced many  instances  of  being  obliged,  by  better  in- 
formation, or  fuller  consideration,  to  change  opinions  even 
on  important  subjects,  which  I  once  thought  right,  but  I 
found  to  be  otherwise.  It  is,  therefore,  that  the  older  I 
grow,  the  more  apt  I  am  to  doubt  my  own  judgment,  and 
to  pay  more  respect  to  the  judgment  of  others.  Most 
men,  indeed,  as  well  as  most  sects  in  religion,  think  them- 
selves in  possession  of  all  truth,  and  that  whenever  others 
differ  from  them,  it  is  so  far  error.  Steele,  a  Protestant, 
in  a  dedication  tells  the  pope  that  '  the  only  difference 
between  our  two  churches,  in  their  opinions  of  the  cer- 
tainty of  their  doctrines  is,  the  Romish  Church  is  infalli- 
ble, and  the  Church  of  England  never  in  the  wrong.' 
But,  though  many  private  persons  think  almost  as  highly 
of  their  own  infallibility  as  that  of  their  sect,  few  express 
it  so  naturally  as  a  certain  French  lady  who,  in  a  little 
dispute  with  her  sister,  said,  '  I  don't  know  how  it  hap- 
pens, sister,  but  I  meet  with  nobody  but  myself  that  is 
always  in  the  right.'  "  "  I  could  never,"  says  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  "  divide  myself  from  any  man  upon  the  difference 
of  an  opinion,  or  be  angry  with  his  judgment  for  not 
agreeing  with  me  in  that  from  which,  perhaps,  within  a 
few  days,  I  should  dissent  myself."  "  Whoever  shall  call 
to  memory  how  many  and  aiany  times  he  has  been  mis- 


382  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

taken  in  his  own  judgment,"  says  the  great  French  essay- 
■St,  "  is  he  not  a  great  fool  if  he  does  not  ever  after  dis- 
trust it? "  "  Beware,"  said  John  Wesley,  "  of  forming  a 
hasty  judgment.  There  are  secrets  which  few  but  God  are 
acquainted  with.  Some  years  since  I  told  a  gentleman, 
'  Sir,  I  am  afraid  you  are  covetous.'  He  asked  me,  'What 
is  the  reason  of  your  fears  ? '  I  answered,  '  A  year  ago, 
when  I  made  a  collection  for  the  expense  of  repairing  the 
Foundry,  you  subscribed  five  guineas.  At  the  subscrip- 
tion made  this  year  you  subscribed  only  half  a  guinea.* 
He  made  no  reply ;  but  after  a  time  asked,  '  Pray,  sir, 
answer  me  a  question.  Why  do  you  live  upon  potatoes  ? ' 
(I  did  so  between  three  and  four  years.)  I  replied,  '  It 
has  much  conduced  to  my  health.'  He  answered,  '  I 
believe  it  has.  But  did  you  not  do  it  likewise  to  save 
money  ? '  I  said,  '  I  did,  for  what  I  save  from  my  own 
meat  will  feed  another  that  else  would  have  none.'  '  But, 
sir,'  said  he,  *  if  this  be  your  motive,  you  may  save  much 
more.  I  know  a  man  that  goes  to  the  market  at  the  be- 
ginning of  each  week.  There  he  buys  a  pennyworth  of 
parsnips,  which  he  boils  in  a  large  quantity  of  water. 
The  parsnips  serve  him  for  food,  and  the  water  for  drink, 
the  ensuing  week,  so  his  meat  and  drink  together  cost 
him  only  a  penny  a  week.'  This  he  constantly  did,  though 
he  had  then  two  hundred  pounds  a  year,  to  pay  the  debts 
which  he  had  contracted  before  he  knew  God !  And  this 
was  he  I  had  set  down  for  a  covetous  man."  "  We  shall 
have  two  wonders  in  heaven,"  said  the  wise  and  gentle 
Tillotson  ;  "  the  one,  how  many  come  to  be  absent  whom 
we  expected  to  find  there  ;  the  other,  how  many  are  there 
whom  we  had  no  hope  of  meeting."  There  is  significance 
in  the  epitaph  by  Steele,  in  The  Spectator :  "  Here  lieth 
R.  C.,  in  expectation  of  the  last  day.  What  sort  of  a  man 
he  was  that  day  will  discover." 

It  would  seem  that,  as  things  are,  there  is  nothing  so 
natural  as  intolerance ;  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at 


RELIGION.  383 

that  the  language  to  express  toleration  should  be  of  mod- 
em invention,  Coleridge  was  of  opinion  "  that  toleration 
was  impossible  till  indifference  made  it  worthless."  Dr. 
King  had  a  different  view ;  he  said,  "  The  opinion  of  any 
one  in  this  world,  except  the  wise  and  good,  who  do  not 
aspire  to  be  even  tolerant,  —  who  are  too  modest  to  be 
tolerant,  since  toleration  implies  superiority,  — is  of  'ittle 
consequence."  Hunt  said  of  Lamb,  that  "  he  had  felt, 
thought,  and  suffered  so  much,  that  he  literally  had  intol- 
erance for  nothing."  Palgrave,  in  his  Travels  through 
Central  and  Eastern  Arabia,  relates  of  Abd-el-Lateef,  a 
Wahabee,  that  one  day  seeing  a  corpulent  Hindoo,  he 
exclaimed,  "  What  a  log  for  hell-fire  !  "  This  follower  of 
Mahomet  had  not  only  the  intolerance,  but  the  conceit 
of  super-excellence  that  the  poor  sectarian  followers  of 
Christ  too  often  have.  When  he  was  preaching  one  day 
to  the  people  of  Riad,  he  recounted  the  tradition  accord- 
ing to  which  Mahomet  declared  that  his  followers  should 
divide  into  seventy-three  sects,  and  that  seventy-two  were 
destined  to  hell-fire,  and  only  one  to  paradise.  "And  what, 
O  messenger  of  God,  are  the  signs  of  that  happy  sect  to 
which  is  insured  the  exclusive  possession  of  paradise  ?  " 
Whereto  Mahomet  had  replied,  "  It  is  those  who  shall  be 
in  all  comformable  to  myself  and  my  companions."  "  And 
that,"  added  Abd-el-Lateef,  lowering  his  voice  to  the  deep 
tone  of  conviction,  "  that,  by  the  mercy  of  God,  are  we, 
the  people  of  Riad." 

Upon  the  subject  of  toleration  and  charity,  read  a  part 
of  the  remarkable  dialogue  from  Arthur  Helps'  Friends 
in  Council :  — 

DuNSFORD.  —  It  is  hard  to  be  tolerant  of  intolerant 
l>eople  ;  to  see  how  natural  their  intolerance  is,  and  in 
fact  thoroughly  to  comprehend  it  and  feel  for  it.  This  is 
the  last  stage  of  tolerance,  which  few  men,  I  suppose,  in 
this  world  attain. 

MiDHURST.  —  Tolerance  appears  to  me  an  unworked 
mine 


384  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

MiLVERTON.  —  There  is  one  great  difficulty  to  be  sur- 
mounted ;  and  that  is,  how  to  make  hard,  clear,  righteous 
men,  who  have  not  sinned  much,  have  not  suffered  much, 
are  not  afflicted  by  strong  passions,  who  have  not  many 
ties  in  the  world,  and  who  have  been  easily  prosperous, 
—  how  to  make  such  men  tolerant.  Think  of  this  for  a 
moment.  For  a  man  who  has  been  rigidly  good  to  be 
supremely  tolerant  would  require  an  amount  of  insight 
which  seems  to  belong  only  to  the  greatest  genius.  I  have 
often  fancied  that  the  main  scheme  of  the  world  is  to 
create  tenderness  in  man  ;  and  I  have  a  notion  that  the 
outer  world  would  change  if  man  were  to  acquire  more  of 
this  tenderness.  You  see  at  present  he  is  obliged  to  be 
kept  down  by  urgent  wants  of  all  kinds,  or  he  would 
otherwise  have  more  time  and  thought  to  devote  to  cruelty 
and  discord.  If  he  could  live  in  a  better  world,  I  mean 
in  a  world  where  nature  was  more  propitious,  I  believe 
he  would  have  such  a  world.  And  in  some  mysterious 
way,  I  suspect  that  nature  is  constrained  to  adapt  herself 
to  the  main  impress  of  the  character  of  the  average  beings 
in  the  world. 

Ellesmere.  —  These  are  very  extraordinary  thoughts. 

DuNSFORD.  —  They  are  not  far  from  Christianity. 

MiLVERTON.  —  You  must  admit,  Ellesmere,  that  Chris- 
tianity has  never  been  tried.  I  do  not  ask  you  to  canvass 
doctrinal  and  controversial  matters.  But  take  the  lead- 
ing precepts ;  read  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  see  if 
t  is  the  least  like  the  doctrines  of  modern  life. 

DuNSFORD.  —  I  cannot  help  thinking,  when  you  are  all 
talking  of  tolerance,  why  you  do  not  use  the  better  word, 
of  which  we  hear  something  in  Scripture,  —  charity. 

MiLVERTON.  —  If  I  were  a  clergyman,  there  is  much 
that  I  should  dislike  to  have  to  say  (being  a  man  of  very 
dubious  mind) ;  there  is  much  also  that  I  should  dislike 
to  have  to  read ;  but  I  should  feel  that  it  was  a  great  day 
for  me  when  I  had  to  read  out  that  short  but  most  abound- 


RELIGION.  385 

ing  chapter  from  St.  Paul  on  charity.  The  more  you 
study  that  chapter,  the  more  profound  you  find  it.  The 
way  that  the  apostle  begins  is  most  remarkable ;  and  I 
doubt  if  it  has  been  often  duly  considered.  We  think 
much  of  knowledge  in  our  own  times  ;  but  consider  what 
the  early  Christian  must  have  thought  of  one  who  pos- 
sessed the  gift  of  tongues  or  the  gift  of  prophecy.  Think 
also  what  the  early  Christian  must  have  thought  of  the 
man  who  possessed  "  all  faith."  Then  listen  to  St.  Paul's 
summing  up  of  these  great  gifts  in  comparison  with  char- 
ity. Dunsford,  will  you  give  us  the  words  ?  You  remem- 
ber them,  I  dare  say. 

Dunsford.  —  (i  Cor.  ch.  xiii.)  "  Though  I  speak  with 
the  tongues  of  ipen  and  of  angels,  and  have  not  charity, 
I  am  become  as  sounding  brass,  or  a  tinkling  cymbal. 

"And  though  I  have  the  gift  of  prophecy,  and  under- 
stand all  mysteries,  and  all  knowledge ;  and  though  I 
have  all  faith,  so  that  I  could  remove  mountains,  and  have 
not  charity,  I  am  nothing." 

MiLVERTON.  —  You  will  let  me  proceed,  I  know,  if  it  is 
only  to  hear  more  from  Dunsford  of  that  chapter.  I  have 
said  that  the  early  Christian  would  have  thought  much  of 
the  man  who  possessed  the  gift  of  tongues,  of  prophecy,  of 
faith.  But  how  he  must  have  venerated  the  rich  man  who 
entered  into  his  little  community,  and  gave  up  all  his 
goods  to  the  poor !  Again,  how  the  early  Christian  must 
have  regarded  with  longing  admiration  the  first  martyrs 
for  his  creed !  Then  hear  what  St.  Paul  says  of  this  out- 
ward charity,  and  of  this  martyrdom,  when  compared  with 
this  infinitely  more  difficult  charity  of  the  soul  and  mar- 
tyrdom of  the  temper.  Dunsford  will  proceed  with  the 
chapter. 

Dunsford.  —  "  And  though  I  bestow  all  my  goods  to 
feed  the  poor,  and  though  I  give  my  body  to  be  burned, 
and  have  not  charity,  it  profiteth  me  nothing." 

MiLVERTON.  —  Pray  go  on,  Dunsford. 
25 


386  LIBRARY  NOTES. 

DuNSFORD.  —  "  Charity  sufifereth  long,  and  is  kind ; 
charity  envieth  not;  charity  vaunteth  not  itself,  is  not 
puffed  up, 

*'  Doth  not  behave  itself  unseemly,  seeketh  not  her 
own,  is  not  easily  provoked,  thinketh  no  evil ; 

"  Rejoiceth  not  in  iniquity,  but  rejoiceth  in  the  truth ; 

"  Beareth  all  things,  believeth  all  things,  hopeth  all 
things,  endureth  all  things.  Charity  never  faileth :  but 
whether  there  be  prophecies,  they  shall  fail ;  whether 
there  be  tongues,  they  shall  cease;  whether  there  be 
knowledge,  it  shall  vanish  away." 

MiLVERTON.  —  That  is  surely  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful things  that  has  ever  been  written  by  man.  It  does 
not  do  to  talk  much  after  it.  , 

Channing  closes  his  Essay  upon  the  Means  of  Promot- 
ing Christianity  with  this  remarkable  passage  :  "  If,  in  this 
age  of  societies,  we  should  think  it  wise  to  recommend 
another  institution  for  the  propagation  of  Christianity,  it 
would  be  one  the  members  of  which  should  be  pledged  to 
assist  and  animate  one  another  in  living  according  to  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount.  How  far  such  a  measure  would 
be  effectual  we  venture  not  to  predict ;  but  of  one  thing 
we  are  sure,  that,  should  it  prosper,  it  would  do  more  for 
spreading  the  gospel  than  all  other  associations  which  are 
now  receiving  the  patronage  of  the  Christian  world." 

At  the  White  House,  on  an  occasion  I  shall  never 
forget,  said  a  visitor,  the  conversation  turned  upon  re- 
ligious subjects,  and  Lincoln  made  this  impressive  re- 
mark :  "  I  have  never  united  myself  to  any  church,  be- 
cause I  have  found  difficulty  in  giving  my  assent,  without 
mental  reservation,  to  the  long,  complicated  statements 
of  Christian  doctrine  which  characterize  their  articles  of 
belief  and  confessions  of  faith.  When  any  church  will 
inscribe  over  its  altar,  as  its  sole  qualification  for  member- 
ship," he  continued,  "  the  Saviour's  condensed  statement 
of  the  substance  of  both  law  and  gospel,  Thou  shalt  love 


RELIGION.  387 

the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul, 
and  with  all  thy  mind,  and  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,  that 
church  will  I  join  with  all  my  heart  and  all  my  soul." 

"  You  may  remember,"  says  Farrar,  in  his  Silence  and 
Voices  of  God,  "  how,  in  the  old  legend,  St.  Brendan,  in 
his  northward  voyage,  saw  a  man  sitting  upon  an  iceberg, 
and  with  horror  recognized  him  as  the  traitor  Judas  Is- 
cario't ;  and  the  traitor  told  him  how,  at  Christmas  time, 
amid  the  drench  of  the  burning  lake,  an  angel  had  touched 
his  arm,  and  bidden  him  for  one  hour  to  cool  his  agony 
on  an  iceberg  in  the  Arctic  sea ;  and  when  he  asked  the 
cause  of  this  mercy,  bade  him  recognize  in  him  a  leper 
to  whom  in  Joppa  streets  he  had  given  a  cloak  to  shelter 
him  from  the  wind  ;  and  how  for  that  one  kind  deed  this 
respite  was  allotted  him.  Let  us  reject  the  ghastly  side 
of  the  legend,  and  accept  its  truth.  Yes,  charity,  —  love 
to  God  as  shown  in  love  to  man  —  is  better  than  all 
burnt-offering  and  sacrifice."  "  In  thy  face,"  said  the  dy- 
ing Bunsen  to  the  wife  of  his  heart,  bending  over  him, 
"  in  thy  face  have  I  seen  the  Eternal." 

When  Abraham,  according  to  another  old  legend,  sat 
at  his  tent  door,  as  was  his  custom,  waiting  to  entertam 
strangers,  he  espied  coming  toward  him  an  old  man, 
stooping  and  leaning  on  his  staff,  weary  with  age  and 
travail,  who  was  a  hundred  years  of  age.  He  received 
him  kindly,  washed  his  feet,  provided  supper,  caused  hin 
to  sit  down ;  but  observing  that  the  old  man  eat,  and 
prayed  not,  nor  begged  for  blessing  on  his  meat,  he  asked 
him  why  he  did  not  worship  the  God  of  heaven.  The 
old  man  told  him  that  he  worshiped  the  fire  only,  and 
acknowledged  no  other  God.  At  which  answer  Abraham 
grew  so  zealously  angry  U^at  he  thrust  the  old  man  out  of 
his  tent,  and  exposed  him  to  all  the  evils  of  the  night  and 
an  unguarded  condition.  When  the  old  man  was  gone, 
God  called  to  Abraham,  and  asked  him  where  the  stran- 
g;er  was.     He  replied,  "  I  thrust  him  away  because  he  did 


388  LIBRARY   NOTES. 

not  worship  Thee."  God  answered  him,  "  I  have  suffered 
him  these  hundred  years,  although  he  dishonored  me  ; 
and  couldst  not  thou  endure  him  one  night  ?  " 

"  Ah  !  poor  things  that  we  are.  We  are  all  sore  with 
many  bruises  and  wounds.  The  marvel  is  that  our  own 
tenderness  does  not  make  us  tender  to  all  others," 

"  He  shall  be  immortal  who  liveth  till  he  be  stoned  by 
one  without  fault." 

"I  saw  in  Rome,  once,  Anstiss,"  said  Hope,  "an  old 
coin,  —  a  silver  denarius,  —  all  coated  and  crusted  with 
green  and  purple  rust.  I  called  it  rust ;  but  Aleck  told 
me  it  was  copper ;  the  alloy  thrown  out  from  the  silver, 
until  there  was  none  left.  Within,  it  was  all  pure.  It 
takes  ages  to  do  it ;  but  it  does  get  done.  Souls  are  like 
that,  Anstiss.  Something  moves  in  them,  slowly,  till  the 
debasement  is  all  thrown  out.  Sometime,  the  very  var- 
nish shall  be  taken  off." 

"  Day  by  day  I  think  I  read  more  plain, 
This  crowning  truth,  that,  spite  of  sin  and  pain, 
No  life  that  God  has  given  is  lived  in  vain  ; 
But  each  poor,  weak,  and  sin-polluted  soul 
Shall  struggle  free  at  last,  and  reach  its  goal,  — 
A  perfect  part  of  God's  great  perfect  whole.** 


INDEX. 


Abkrnkthy,  a  timid  lecturer,  255. 

Abd-el-Lateef,  anecdote  of,  3S3. 

Addison,  on  living  and  dressing  accord- 
ing to  the  rules  of  common  sense,  64  ; 
his  care  in  composition,  127;  reputed 
portrait  of,  i8g ;  his  belief  in  ghosts, 
243  ;  his  marriage,  246;  enlarges  on  a 
thought  of  Socrates,  37^. 

Advice,  on  asking  and  giving,  10^ 

/Eschines,  of  Pericles  and  Aspasia,  41. 

/Esop,  fable  of  the  travelers  and  the 
chameleon,  37(3. 

Agassiz,  had  no  time  to  make  money,  139. 

Aikenhead,  hanged  for  free  religious 
opinions,  362. 

Alfieri,  how  he  composed,  126. 

Alfred,  King  of  Denmark,  story  of,  165. 

Alger^  public  opinion  the  atmosphere  of 
society,  7 ;  most  men  live  blindly,  23  ; 
ruins,  and  what  they  symbolize,  216  ; 
on  the  blindness  01  Homer,  Milton, 
Galileo,  and  Handel,  228 ;  on  the  hap- 
piness of  solitude,  342  ;  his  account  of 
the  hermit  of  Grub  Street,  343;  the 
forest  of  statues  on  the  roof  of  Milan 
cathedral,  354;  the  scholar's  pantlieon 
at  the  top  of  his  mind,  354. 

Amyot,  his  poverty  and  success,  125. 

Anaxagoras,  a  request  made  by,  216; 
whom  he  believed  to  be  most  happy, 
346. 

Andersen,  advice  to,  148. 

Anecdote  of  a  singer  and  his  wife  in 
Leipsic,  316;  01  a  hypochondriacal 
comedian,  323. 

Augelo,  Michel,  confesses  his  ignorance, 
ag ;  on  reforming  mankind,  93 ;  anec- 
dote of,  168;  and  Raphael,  171 ;  a  gem 
once  worn  on  the  finger  of,  178;  and 
the  Reformition,  252 ;  the  statues  of, 
303 ;  and  Biamante,  303 ;  of  Donatel- 
lo's  statue,  325  ;  a  saying  of  his  com- 
mending moderation,  348. 

Annals  of  the  Parish,  why  rejected,  148. 

Viison,  I/Oid,  different  opinions  of,  i8g. 

Appleseed,  Johnny,  character  and  career 
of,  112. 

Apelles  and  Protogenes,  171.  _ 

Apuleius^  a  curious  fact  relating  to,  249. 

Arago,  his  claim  for  ancient  Egypt,  181. 

Arbuthnot,  Pope,  and  Gay,  fate  of  a  joint 
play  of,  255. 


Archimedes,  the  tomb  of,  215. 

Arctic  morality,  102. 

Arctic  region,  small  proportion  of  fnd 
used  in  the,  241 ;  effect  of  frost  in  the, 
301. 

Arethusa,  Fountain  of,  302. 

Aristotle,  on  proverbs,  159 ;  logic  known 
before,  182  ;  fate  of,  223. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  moral  rules  for  the 
sage  only,  369. 

Artist,  an,  in  serpents,  300. 

Aspasia  and  Pencles,  41. 

Atterbury,  Bishop,  what  he  said  of  New- 
ton, 107. 

Augereau,  at  the  coronation  of  Napo- 
leon, no. 

Augustine,  St.,  and  the  idea  of  Fourier- 
ism,  182 ;  subtleties  on  the  question, 
What  then  is  time  ?  339 ;  on  a  happy 
life,  340;  a  passage  from  his  Confes- 
sions, 354- 

Auld  Lanjj  Syne,  204. 

Auld  Robin  Gray,  its  authorship  a  secret 
for  fifty  years,  254. 

Aurelius,  Marcus,  tolerant^  and  good  to 
all  but  Christians,  33 ;  his  idea  of  free 
government,  185;  his  doubtful  wife 
and  bad  son,  247  ;  what  he  learnt  frcm 
his  tutor.  347 ;  a  lofty  thought  of,  on 
the  sacrediiess  of  life,  355. 

Babinet,  his  opinion  of  a  submarine 
telegraph,  267. 

Bacon,  on  nature  reviving  —  iEsop'i 
damsel,  48  ;  of  policy  and  craft,  65. 

Bailly,  story  told  of,  167. 

Balzac,  his  care  in  composition,  128.  _ 

Barbauld,  Mrs.,  passage  from,  296 ;  lines 
by,  356. 

Barire,  views  and  conduct  early  and  late 
in  life,  104. 

Barry,  Michael  J.,  some  lines  by,  120. 

Barton,  Bernard,  his  surprise  at  a  fu- 
neral, 156. 

Bathurst,  Lord,  acd  the  Essay  03  Man, 

Baxter,  a  believer  in  witchcraft,  250 ;  his 
views  at  the  end  of  life,  26S ;  the  re- 
sult, after  a  trial  of  worldly  things,  326. 

Bayle,  on  Pericles  and  Aspasia,  41  ;  on 
the  spirit  of  party,  61 ;  on  Machia- 
velli's  Prince,  233  ;  the  purity  of,   245. 


390 


INDEX. 


Beattie,  Di.,  of  a  witty  parson,  43, 
Beaumarcliais,    adaptations    of   Tarare, 
221. 

Becket,  Thomas  k,  story  of  the  mother 

of,  212. 
Beckford,  and  his  romance,  Vathek,  252. 
Beutivoglio,  misfortunes  of,  262. 
Bcranger,  refuses  a  legacy,  141. 
Berkeley^   Bishop,  on  being  master  of 

one's  time,  136. 
Bernis,  Cardinal,  and  Madame  de  Pom- 
padour, 268. 
Betterton,  a  borrower  from  Steele,  169. 
Beyle,  Henri,  a  laborious  writer,  125. 
Iteza,  one    of    his    invectives,   45 ;    his 

coarse,  amorous  poems,  268. 
Bible,  the,  in  literature,  161 ;  a  reference 

to,  241. 
Billingsgate,  fish-woman  of,  28. 
Blackwood's  Magazine  on  diversity,  5 ; 
on  the  inevitable  and  irremediable,  gi ; 
on  public  opinion,  361  ;  on  the  adoring 
principle  in  human  nature,  368. 
Blake,   William,    artist,  genius,  mystic, 

madman,  2S1. 
Blessington,  Lady,  relating  to  Moore,  140. 
Boileau,  an   unwearied    corrector,   126  ; 

relating  to  Moli^re,  149. 
Bolingbroke  to  Swift,  214. 
Books  never  published,  194. 
Boots  with  pointed  toes  believed  to  be 

the  cause  of  the  plague,  203. 
Borghese,  Paulo,  poverty  of,  261. 
Borghese,  Princess,  anecdote  of,  311. 
Bossuet,  confesses  his  insignificance,  30 ; 

appearance  of  his  manuscript,  129. 
Boswell,  and  intellectual  chemistry,  42 ; 
on  being  reckoned  wise,  168  ;  the  bul- 
wark of  Johnson's  fame,   igo;  John- 
son's pretended  contempt  of,  243. 
Boyle,  eflfect  of  falling  water  upon,  244. 
Brackenridge,  distrust  of  moderation  nat- 
ural, 296. 
Brahe,  Tycho,  and  the  idiot  Lep,  22S ; 

his  terror  of  a  hare  or  fox,  244. 
Brain,  insensibility  of  the,  242. 
Bramah,  origin  of  the  idea  of  his  lock, 

181. 
Brewster,  Sir  David,  and   the  story  of 
the  falling  apple,  175  ;  on  Galileo's  ab- 
juration, 223. 
Bronte,  Charlotte,  a  painstaking  writer, 
126  ;  life  and  genius  of,  276,  277,  27S. 
Brougham,  how  he  composed  one  of  his 

speeches,  132;  a  curious  fact  of,  254. 
Brown,  John,  utterances  and  incidents 
of,  113;  and  the  old  engine-house,  264; 
and  the  governor  of  Virginia,  264 ;  a 
daughter  of,  265 ;  one  of  his  trusted 
men,  265. 
Brown,  Tom,  a  remark  of,  121. 
Bi*wne,  Sir  Thomas,  on  self-love,  14; 
confesses  his  ignorance,  31 ;  on  a  neg- 
lect of  the  great,  151 ;  on  maxims  that 
will  never  be  out  of  date,  159;  his  faith 
a  witchcraft,  224 ;  a  lofty  thought  of, 
en  the  immortality  of   life,  355 ;    on 


usurping  the  gates  of  heaven,  366 ;  his 
distrustof  his  own  judgment,  381. 

Bruce,  and  the  story  of  the  spider,  165 ; 
death  of,  260. 

Brunei,  a  remark  of,  relating  to  Pom- 
pey's  Pillar,  i8i. 

Brunelleschi,  and  the  story  of  the  egg, 
166. 

Buffon,  his  manner  of  composing,  128. 

Biilow,  effects  of  his  stopping  practice^ 
130. 

Bulwer,  on  truth,  4;  anecdote  of  Kean, 
13 ;  relating  to  Calvin  and  Torque- 
mada,  46  ;  his  description  of  J  superior 
man,  68 ;  on  the  English  language, 
158;  on  the  language  of  Spaii,  158; 
on  La  Rochefoucauld,  234 ;  of  Des- 
cartes, 238;  looking  from  the  window 
of  his  club,  338 ;  paraphrase  from 
Phsedrus,  374. 

Bunsen,  dying  exclamation  of,  387. 

Bunyan,  wrote  Pilgrim's  Progress  in 
pnson,  135. 

Burke,  no  great  fire  without  great  heat, 
46;  a  remark  of  on  idleness,  122; 
how  he  worried  his  printer,  132;  at 
Beaconsfield,  154;  his  tribute  to  John 
Howard,  231 ;  his  great  care  as  a 
writer,  24g ;  his  style  in  youth  and  old 
age,  254. 

Burnet,  Bishop,  his  estimate  of  Newton, 
107  ;  on  Lord  Rochester,  236. 

Burns,  characterizes  woman,  3  ;  remarks 
of  and  by,  123  ;  his  poverty  and  pride, 
137 ;  advised  to  imitate  Mrs.  John 
Hunter,  145;  confidence  in  his  own 
powers,  150  ;  tribute  of  Hawthorne  to, 
153;  the  Scotsman's  religion,  174;  a 
complaint  of  himself,  244  ;  pronounced 
incapable  of  music,  263;  on  sensibil- 
ity, 314;  his  constitutional  melancholy, 
315 ;  lines  by,  344 ;  his  gospel  of  char- 
ily, 376- 
Burton,  naught  so  sweet  as  melancholy, 
naught  so  damned  as  melancholy,  314 ; 
on  content  and  true  happiness,  325. 
Butler,  misery  of,  315. 
Byron,  some  lines  by,  150  ;  criticises  my- 
thology, 1S7  ;  a  peculiarity  of,  244. 

C/ESAR,  Augustus,  his  fear  of  thunder, 
244. 

Caesar,  Julius,  the  corpse  of,  222 ;  ambi- 
tion of,  criticised  by  Pascal,  353. 

Cagliostro,  Lavater  duped  by,  258. 

Calamities  sorpetimes  blessings,  226. 

Caligula  and  his  horse,  gg. 

Caliph,  memorial  of  an  illustrious,  333. 

Callcott,  his  picture  of  Milton  and  his 
daughter,  175. 

Calvin,  occasional  violence  of,  45. 

Camoens,  poverty  of,  134,  261. 

Campbell,  his  difficulty  in  finding  a 
bookseller,  133 ;  Scott  and  Hohenlin- 
den,  150;  and  Prof.  Wilson,  268. 

Candide's  supper  at,Venice  with  the  bU 
kii'gs,  333- 


INDEX. 


391 


Canova  exhibiting  his  paintings,  261. 

Canute,  the  story  of,  166.  _ 

Captain  of  Virginia  militia,  exclamation 
of,  119. 

Carlyle,  legend  of  Moses  and  the  Dead 
Sea  people,  40 ;  on  the  effects  of  cus- 
tom, 64 ;  fastidiousness  as  a  writer, 
130  ;  his  opinion  of  a  hero,  232  ;  com- 
pares men  to  sheep,  295. 

Cashmere  shawls,  iSo. 

Castelar,  a  republican's  opinion  of  Rome, 
307 ;  on  the  unhappiness  of  life,  337  ; 
pleads  for  universal  toleration,  361. 

Cato,  how  he  was  estimated  by  contem- 
poraries, 144;  learned  Greek  after  he 
was  seventy,  267. 

Cecil,  sorrowed  in  the  bright  lustre  of  a 
court,  334. 

Cervantes,  poverty  of,  134;  planned  and 
commenced  Don  Quixote  in  prison, 
135  ;  a  curious  fact  of,  191 ;  his  wretch- 

'  edness  and  melancholy,  315. 

Chalmers,  as  to  certain  of  his  composi- 
tions, 254 ;  and  the  views  of  Malthus, 
263. 

Change,  anecdotes  and  facts  iUustrating, 
9,  10,  n. 

Chanmng,  on  estabUshing  a  new  society, 
386. 

Chapman,  Jonathan,  known  as  Johnny 
Appleseed,  112. 

Charlemagne,  a  story  of  the  daughter  of, 
165. 

Charles  I.,  a  story  told  of,  167. 

Charles  II.,  his  criticism  of  Sir  Mat- 
thew Hale,  3  ;  touching  for  the  evil, 
224 ;  and  Cromwell,  304 ;  and  Wycher- 
ley,  304 ;  the  name  given  him  by  one 
wlie  knew  him,  304;  manner  of  his 
death,   304;    character  of,   drawn    by 


Macaulay,  306. 
'harle 
167. 


Charles  X 


y,  30O- 
11.,  of 


Sweden,  anecdote  of, 


Charity,  Christian,  a  story  illustrating, 

357- 

Chaulnes,  Duke  de,  and  Johnson,  370. 

Chaumette,  devoted  to  an  aviary,  99. 

Cheops,  ring  of,  178. 

Chesterfield,  a  remark  on,  190 ;  speeches 
of,  written  by  Johnson,  248. 

Chillingworth,  at  last  confident  of  noth- 
ing, 25S. 

China,  scarcity  of  labor  in,  240. 

Chinese  rebuke  of  Christians,  loi. 

Chrysippus,  of  misers,  72. 

Cicero,  of  the  man  and  his  eggs,  6;  his 
experience  at  a  watering-place,  16  ;  how 
laboriously  he  prepared  his  speeches, 
131  ;  the  diminutive  copy  of  the  Iliad 
he  saw,  17S;  on  universal  brotherhood, 
185  ;  hunting  the  tomb  of  Arrhimedes, 
215;  timidity  of,  262. 

Clairvoyance,  very  old,  183. 

Cual,  a  man  executed  for  burning  it, 
202. 

Cobbe,  Frances  Power,  on  the  Cliristian 
niuvcmcnt,  370. 


Cobbett,   revisits  the  scenes  ti  his  bojk 

hood,  220. 
Cockbum,  Lord,  anecdote  of  Dr.  Henry 

80.  _ 

Coleridge,  one  just  flogging  he  received, 
21  ;  horrified  by  the  exclamation  of  a 
boy,  22 ;  some  devil  and  some  god  in 
man,  42  ;  anecdote  of  a  dignified  man, 
6g ;  on  doing  good,  93 ;  of  traders  in 
philanthropy,  97  ;  project  of  pantisoc- 
racy,  102 ;  fears  he  has  caught  the 
itch,  103 ;  gained  little  by  his  writings, 
133  ;  what  he  thought  a  sufEcient  in- 
come, 138;  of  Goethe,  147;  intellect 
of,  IS';  comparison  of  Shakespeare 
with  Milton,  152  ;  on  Shakespeare  and 
Homer,  152;  at  York  minster,  196;  a 
remark  of,  in  one  of  his  lectures,  200 ; 
and  John  Chester,  21 1 ;  curious  facts 
relating  to,  250;  and  the  House  that 
Jack  built,  26S ;  on  certain  smells,  302 ; 
his  summing  up  of  life,  336  ;  remark 
on  Home  Tooke,  378  ;  remark  on  tol- 
eration, 3S3. 

Columbus,  and  the  egg,  i56 ;  fact  relat 
ing  to,  259. 

Commodus,  tolerant  to  Christians,  247. 

Common  sense  defined,  7. 

Communist,  a,  defined,  105. 

Conciergerie,  flirting  and  love-making  ii 
the,  35. 

Confucius,  descnbes  the  conduct  of  th 
superior  man,  23  ;  his  joy  in  frugalitj 
136;  and  the  Golden  Rule,  185  ;  ane< 
dote  of,  373. 

Congreve,  what  the  one  wise  man  knew 

32- 

Conscience,  22. 

Corey,  Giles,  pressed  to  death,  60. 

Corneille,  his  poverty,  134;  what  Nap« 
leon  said  of  him,  153  ;  tiresome  in  con 
versation,  260. 

Cornwall,  Barry,  his  fear  of  the  sea,  251 

Correggio,  no  portrait  of,  262. 

Corwin,  Thomas,  anecdote  of,  168. 

Cottle,  Joseph,  relating  to  Coleridge,  22  ' 
of  Coleridge  at  York  minster,  ig&', 
lines  by,  admired  by  Coleridge,  378. 

Coiithon,  devoted  to  a  spaniel,  99. 

Cowley,  a  curious  fact  01,  245. 

Cowper,  his  poems  and  their  publisher 
192  ;  his  mental  malady,  226 ;  the  bal 
lad  of  John  Gilpin,  227 ;  the  pool 
schoolmaster,  Teedon,  228 ;  his  at- 
tempt at  suicide,  246 ;  his  giggling  with 
Thurlow,  246;  the  sanest  of  English 
poets,  254;  fancied  himself  hated  bj 
his  Creator,  259;  a  melancholy  con- 
fession of,  317. 

Crabbe,  wrote  and  burned  three  nov6l*i 

259-  . 

Credulity,  20,  22^. 

Creed,  in  the  biliary  duct,  8;  referred  to 
in  the  rebuke  of  a  clergj'man,  20. 

Crichton,  curious  achievement  of,  264. 

Cromwell,  his  distrust  of  popular  ap- 
plause, 298  ;  and  Charles  II ,  304  ;  mi 


392 


INDEX. 


Milton,  304 ;  how  estimated  when  flat- 
tery was  mute,  304;  manner  of  his 
death,  304. 

Crowne,  John,  reading  by  lightning,  46. 

Cumberland,  and  Sheridan,  9;  describes 
Soame  Jenyns,  236 ;  Goldsmith  and 
his  comedy,  270 ;  the  dinner  at  the 
Shakespeare  tavern,  271 ;  predicament 
of  an  artist  in  serpents,  300;  a  reflec- 
tion on  old  age,  332  ;  on  a  man  gifted 
with  worldly  qualities,  350 ;  remark  on 
Bubb  Doddington,  378. 

Curing  public  evils,  25. 

Curiosity,  17,  32. 

Curran,  contest  \vith  the  fish-woman,  28 ; 
remark  to  Phillips  about  his  speeches, 
24^;  melancholy  nature  of,  314. 

Curtis,  George  William,  castles  in  Spain, 

327- 
Cushman,  Charlotte,    anecdote    related 

by.  35- 
Custom,  doth  make  cowards  of  us  all,  64. 

Dagiterre,  his  discovery  anticipated, 
181. 

Damascus  blades  of  the  Crusades,  180. 

Dante,  a  story  told  of,  170 ;  the  prodigal 
and  the  avaricious  together,  302. 

D'Arblay,  Madame,  and  Mrs.  Barbauld's 
stanza  on  Life,  356. 

Darwin,  cattle  in  East  Falkland  Island, 
10;  earthquake  at  Talcahuano,  17  ;  a 
curious  fox  on  the  island  of  San  Pe- 
dro, 18  ;  conduct  of  the  Fuegians,  27  ; 
petrified  trees  on  the  Andes,  loS ;  con- 
duct of  the  New  Zealand  chief,  211; 
the  three  years'  drought  in  Buenos 
Ayres,  222  ;  sound  and  silence  in  the 
forest  of  Brazil,  301. 

D'Alembert,  declines  the  favors  of  roy- 
alty, 141. 

De  Coverley,  Sir  Roger,  cause  of  the 
death  of,  373. 

De  Foe,  rules  from  the  Complete  Eng- 
lish Tradesman,  86. 

De  I'Isle  and  the  Marseillaise,  205,  248. 

Delia  Valle,  conduct  of  the  women  at 
Goa,  34 ;  his  own  strange  conduct,  35. 

Demetrius,  and  his  father,  166 ;  a  story 
told  of,  167. 

Democritus,  thought  to  be  a  madman, 

144- 

Demosthenes,  gloried  in  the  smeU  o£  the 
lamp,  131 ;  timidity  of,  262.^ 

Denham,  curious  facts  relating  to,  235; 
anecdote  of,  235. 

De  Quincey,  no  thought  without  blem- 
ish, 90 ;  his  estimate  of  Goethe,  146 ; 
of  Milton,  152. 

Descartes,  modesty  of,  238. 

De  Reti,  statement  of,  234. 

Desert,  painful  silence  of  the,  301. 

De  Siael,  Madame,  criticism  of  God- 
win, 98 ;  and  Madame  R^camier,  172  ; 
Talleyrand's  reply  to,  187  ;  Napoleon's 
hatred  of,  253  ;  mourns  the  solitude  of 
life,  335- 


De  Tocqueville,  character  of  Jie  French, 

40 ;  remark  of  an  old  lady  to,  75  ;  story 
told  to  by  Rulhitre,  77  ;  on  old  age, 
333;  some  wise  observations  on  life, 

341- 

Devil,  the  Reformation  and  the,  204 ;  the 

priest  and  the,  204. 
Dickens,  his  care  in  composition,  128. 
Digby,  an  illustration  from,  11. 
Dignity,  assumed,  described,  and  satir> 

ized,  67,  68,  69^  70. 
Diminutive  writing  and  printing,  178. 
Diogenes,  banished  for   counterfeiting, 

260. 
Dionysius,  story  of,  166. 
Disraeli,   Isaac,   his  sketch  of  Audley, 

73;    anecdote  of,   ij8;    on  proverbs, 

159  ;  on  men  of  genius,  232. 
Disraeli,  Benjamin,  on  the  limits  of  hu- 
man reason,  62. 
Diversity,  4,  5. 
Doddington,    Bubb,    characterized    by 

Cumberland,  378. 
Doing  good,  Lamb  on,  89  ;  difficulty  of, 

93 ;  remark  of  Coleridge,  93  ;  passages 

from  Thoreau,  93. 
Domitian,  amused  himself  catching  flies, 

263. 
Drake,  and  the  origin  of    the  Culprit 

Fay,  193. 
Drummond,  the  sonorous  laugher,  271. 
Dryden,  criticises  the  judges  of  his  day, 

3;  anecdote  relating  to,  154;  a  curious 

fact  of,  255. 
Duchatel,  his  poverty  and  renown,  125. 
Dunbar,  neglect  of  the  poems  of,  199. 
Dutch  Ambassador  and  the  King  of  Si« 

am,  loi. 
Dyer,  George,  his  experience  while  ush- 
er, 88 ;  an  associate  of   Lamb's,  28^ ; 

his  biography  of    Robinson,  284 ;  his 

absent-mindedness,  284 ;  anecdotes  of, 

285,  286. 

EcKERMANN,  describes  a  scene  on  the 
Simplon,  350. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  effect  of  his  work 
on  Original  Sin,  56;  curious  fact  re- 
lating to,  266. 

Egypt,  hospitals  for  cats  in,  99 ;  ventila- 
tion in  the  pyramids  of,  181 ;  the  rail- 
road dates  back  to,  181 ;  social  ques- 
tions discussed  to  rags  in,  181. 

Eldon,  Lord,  an  anecdote  he  vras  fond 
of  relating,  76 ;  a  remark  in  old  age, 
104 ;  and  Bessy  Surtees,  246 ;  his 
daughter's  elopement,  246 ;  a  curious 
experience  of,  at  Oxford,  246. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  a  curious  fact  of,  245. 

Elliot,  Sir  Gilbert,  passion  necessary  to 
revolution,  46. 

Elliott,  the  Corn-Law  Rhymer,  defines 
a  communist,  105. 

Eloquence,  a  rude  specimen  of,  313. 

Emerson,  a  man  like  a  bit  of  Labrador 
spar,  3  ;  the  soul  not  twin-bom,  s  ;  life 
a  series  of  surprises,  24 ;  confesses  hii 


INDEX. 


393 


ignorance,  -^a;  on  the  pood  of  evil, 
40;  few  spontaneous  actions,  64;  on 
reforminf;,  90 ;  is  virtue  piecemeal  ?  93  ; 
of  one  that  would  help  himself  and 
others,  105 ;  the  martyrdom  of  John 
Brown,  1 19 ;  advantages  of  riches  not 
with  the  heir,  121 ;  persona:!  independ- 
ence, 138;  of  Shakespeare,  153 ;  of 
the  theory  and  practice  of  life,  240; 
the  plant  papyrus,  241 ;  relating  to  Co- 
lumbus, 259;  the  difference  between 
the  wise  and  the  unwise,  354 ;  effects 
of  an  acceptance  of  the  sentiment  of 
love,  359- 

Epictetus,  on  forgiving  injuries,  185. 

Epicurus,  his  name  a  synonym  for  sensu- 
ality, 261;  his  moderation,  349. 

Erasmus,  on  self-love,  12  ;  two  natures  in 
Luther,  47 ;  of  the  Colloquies  of,  193  ; 
effect  of  the  smell  of  fish  upon,  244; 
and  Luther,  30S ;  what  he  said  of  Lu- 
ther, 309. 

Erskine,  a  severe  corrector,  132. 

Essay  on  Man,  curious  statement  relat- 
ing to,  249. 

Esquirol,  effects  of  occupation,  378. 

Euclid,  stereoscope  known  to,  181. 

Evelyn,  observation  on  Jeffreys,  189; 
his  argument  against  solitude,  244. 

Evil,  ceremony  of  touching  for  the,  224. 

Extremes,  law  of,  295 ;  meeting  of  in 
morals  and  legislation,  304. 

Fairy's  funeral,  description  of  a,  293. 

Falstaff,  dress  to  represent^  69. 

Faraday,  curious  fact  relating  to,  253. 

Farrar,  legend  of  St.  Brendan  and  Judas 
Iscariot,  387 ;  of  the  purification  of 
souls,  388. 

Faustina,  wife  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  247. 

F^nelon,  and  the  publication  of  Telem- 
achus,  193 ;  on  a  violent  zeal  that  we 
must  correct,  363  ;  anecdotes  of,  373. 

Fieldingj  a  curious  fact  relating  to,  191  ; 
and  Richardson,  199  ;  on  our  faults,  and 
the  difficulty  of  amending  them,  338. 

Fittleworth,  rector  of,  how  he  lost  his 
living,  37. 

Fitzherbert  and  Townshend,  211. 

Flaxman,  of  the  Graces  and  the  Furies, 
10;  determines  the  sex  of  a  statue, 
187;  strange  fact  of  the  wife  of,  226. 

Foote,  how  he  took  off  the  Dublin  prin- 
ter, 78;  a  story  of,  164;  a  remark  on 
the  death  of,  265. 

Forster,  relating  to  Goldsmith,  156. 

Foster,  record  of  a  reflective  aged  man, 
7 ;  analysis  of  an  atheist,  19 ;  story  of 
the  devil  turned  preacher,  43 ;  on  self- 
idolizing  dreamers,  91  ;  care  in  compo- 
sition, 129;  tribute  to  John  Howard. 
229 ;  on  a  violation  of  the  laws  01 
■goodness,  240 ;  origin  of  his  essays, 
246. 

Fournier,  devoted  to  a  squirrel,  99. 

Fox,  fastidious  in  composition,  126. 

Francis,  Sir  Philip,  and  Junius,  257. 


Franklin,  Dr.,  his  advice  to  the  thre« 
sages,  367 ;  doubted  his  own  judgment 
as  he  grew  older,  381. 

Frederick  the  Great,  a  story  told  of,  167; 
and  Robespierre,  238. 

Frederick  William,  canes  a  Jew  in  a 
street  of  Berlin,  51. 

Froissart,  of  a  rev^end  monk,  48. 

Froude,  terrible  story  related  by,  57  ;  hu 
man  things  and  icebergs,  109;  areflec 
tion  of,  applied  to  John  Brown,  119; 
of  fortune  and  rank,  121;  prosperity 
consistent  with  worldliness,  349 ;  the 
Scots  a  happy  people,  350;  on  putting 
to  death  for  a  speculative  theologicju 
opinion,  363 ;  how  the  laity  should 
treat  the  controversial  divines,  367. 

Fuller,  Margaret,  on  Goethe,  105  ;  few 
great,  few  able  to  appreciate  greatness, 

143- 

Fuller,  Thomas,  statement  relating  to 
Rabelais,  190 ;  curious  fact  relating  to 
Wolsey,  224 ;  the  Holy  Ghost  came 
down  not  in  the  shape  of  a  vulture, 
3S9 ;  he  shall  be  immortal  who  liveth 
fill  he  be  stoned  by  one  without  fault, 
388. 

Fuseli,  a  habit  of  in  sketching,  2. 

Gainsborough,  a  remark  on  painting 
and  engraving,  198. 

Galileo,  ceremony  of  abjuration,  223 ; 
blindness  of,  228. 

Gait,  an  observation  by,  no;  Annals  of 
the  Parish,  148. 

Garrick,  varietjr  of  his  countenance,  10 ; 
a  story  of  his  acting,  78 ;  the  public 
grew  tired  of  admiring  him,  297. 

Gaskell,  account  of  the  death  of  a  cock- 
fighting  squire,  38  ;  anecdote  of  Grim- 
shaw,  55. 

Gay,  Pope,  and  Arbuthnot,  fate  of  a 
joint  play  of,  255. 

Gems,  imitations  of,  177;  cabinet  of  in 
Italy,  178. 

Genius,  our  obligations  to,  161. 

Geoffrin,  Madame,  and  Rulhiire,  170. 

Gertrud  bird,  79. 

Giardini,  of  playing  the  violin,  130. 

Gibbon,  his  fastidiousness  as  a  writer, 
125;  review  of  the  series  of  Byzantine 
emperors,  219. 

Gladstone,  interesting  reply  of,  263 

Glass  in  Pompeii,  177. 

Godwin,  Madame  de  Stael's  criticism  of, 
98 ;  a  good  husband  and  kind  father 
255  ;  and  Rough,  311. 

Goethe,  confesses  his  ignorance,  29 ;  rea- 
son can  never  be  popular,  62 ;  anec- 
dote of  Merck  and  the  grand  duke,  89 ; 
to  know  how  cherries  and  strawberrie» 
taste,  90 ;  a  fortunate  mistake  of,  92 ; 
nature,  103 ;  giving  advice,  104 ;  aris- 
tocracy and  democracy,  104  ;  the  world 
cannot  keep  quiet,  io>j ;  his  works  com- 
mercially, 133;  objections  to  luxurious 
furniture,  137  ;  of  Dante's  great  poem. 


394 


INDEX. 


147 ;  advised  against  writing  Faust, 
14S  ,•  genius  of  Shakespeare,  152;  in- 
fluence of  Voltaire,  153;  a  staff  offi- 
cer's opinion  of,  155  ;  first  impression 
of  Switzerland,  195  ;  critical  remark  of, 
198;  on  a  peculiarity  of  Schiller,  244; 
disparaged  himself  as  a  poet,  261 ; 
pleasant  dreams  after  falling  asleep  in 
tears,  318  ;  compares  life  to  a  residence 
at  a  watering-place,  332  ;  the  simplicity 
of  the  world,  347  ;  arrogance  natural 
to  youth,  352 ;  remark  of  at  the  age 
of  seventy-five^  355  ;  truth  and  error, 
361 ;  of  a  Christianity  of  feeling  and 
action,  366. 
Goldsmith,  of  the  vanity  of  human  judg- 
ment, 24 ;  ten  years  composing  the 
Traveller,  129;  to  Bob  Bryanton,  135; 

Sroud  reply  to  Hawkins,  139  ;  reply  to 
)r.  Scott,  139 ;  criticises  Waller,  Pope, 
and  Milton,  145 ;  opinion  of  Tristram 
Shandy,  147  ;  his  street  ballads,  156  ;  a 
saying  of  credited  to  Talleyrand,  172  ; 
relations  with  Bott,  the  barrister,  200 ; 
friendship  and  jealousy,  240 ;  as  a  talk- 
er and  as  a  writer,  244 ;  Goody  Two 
Shoes,  268 ;  at  the  British  Coffee 
House,  270 ;  first  acting  of  She  Stoops 
to  Conquer,  270  ;  conduct  during,  271. 

Goodness  tainted,  94. 

Gordianus,  epitaph  of,  263. 

Grammont,  Count,  on  Sir  John  Den- 
ham,  235. 

Gray,  twenty  years  touching  up  his  Ele- 
gy, 126  ;  criticises  Thomson  and  Aken- 
side,  145  ;  diffidence  and  fastidiousness 
of,  23S ;  his  Elegy  not  intended  for  the 
public,  258. 

Greene,  Peele,  and  Marlowe,  249. 

Grimaldi,  devouring  melancholy  of,  313- 

Groenvelt,  Dr.,  persecution  of,  201. 

Gu^rin,  Eugenie  de,  her  story  of  the 
poor  shepherdess,  345. 

Gu^rin,  Maurice  de,  on  a  solitary  life, 
342- 

Guido,  and  the  portrait  of  Beatrice  Cen- 

Guizot,  dechnes  a  title,  141. 

Hadrian's  villa,  217. 

Hale,  Sir  Matthew,  criticised  by  Charles 
II.,  3;  unpublished  writings  of,  194; 
trials  before  for  witchcraft,  224 ;  influ- 
enced by  Jeffreys,  247. 

Hall,  Robert,  sought  relief  in  Dante, 
267. 

HaUam,  his  opinion  of  Hooker,  225. 

Hammond,  Elton,  278. 

Handel,  blindness  of,  228 ;  his  hallelu- 
jahs open  the  heavens,  229. 

Harrington,  imprisonment  of,  135  ;  man 
a  religious  creature,  368. 

Harvey,  effects  of  his  discovery,  147, 
301. 

Hawthorne,  or  men  who  surrender 
themselves  to  an  overruling  power, 
97 ;  ou  epecia'.  reformers,  98 ;  distinc- 


tion between  a  philanthropic  man  and 
a  philanthropist,  113  ;  Byron  and 
Burns,  153  ;  of  the  Scarlet  Letter,  188  j 
statement  relating  to  the  Mayflower, 
241 ;  of  artists  who  have  painted  their 
own  portraits,  377. 

Haydn,  a  story  told  of,  175. 

Haysvard,  passages  from,  164,  16s,  174. 

Hazlitt,  his  violence  at  times,  36 ;  legend 
of  a  Brahman  turned  into  a  monkey, 
48 ;  of  two  pictures  by  Northcote,  190 ; 
of  Coleridge  and  John  Chester,  211; 
the  poet  Gray,  238 ;  every  man  an  ex 
ception,  240 ;  strange  facts  about,  263 ; 
opinion  of  Mary  Lamb,  267 ;  of  Gar- 
nck,  297  ;  wanting  one  thing^  he  want- 
ed everything,  325 ;  on  aiming  at  too 
much;  337 ;  on  keeping  in  our  own 
walk  m  life,  347 ;  life,  at  the  beginning 
and  the  end,  352. 

Heart,  insensibility  of  the,  242. 

Heine,  pleads  for  the  negro  king,  27; 
of  Luther,  47  ;  when  he  would  forgive 
his  enemies,  53 ;  tribute  to  Goethe, 
153  ;  ignorance  of  doctors,  208  ;  of  the 
leper-poet,  31S ;  a  paralytic,  320 ;  fame 
nauseous  to,  331. 

Helps,  Arthur,  the  nature  of  man,  33; 
you  never  know  enough  about  a  man 
to  condemn  him,  39;  the  art  of  life, 
341 ;  dialogue  on  toleration  and  char- 
ity, 383-     ,  , 

Helvetius,  of  the  passions,  46  ;  advice  to 
Montesquieu,  148. 

Henderson,  faculty  of  getting  words  by 
heart,  125. 

Henry  VI.  of  France,  a  story  of,  171. 

Henry,  Patrick,  his  last  speech,  264. 

Hercules,  a  diminutive  figure  of,  178. 

Herder,  advice  to  Goethe,  148. 

Herrick,  a  painstaking  elaborator,  139. 

Hiero,  questions  Simonides,  31,  348. 

Hildebrand,  Pope,  fate  of,  223. 

Hill,  Dr.,  and  Hannah  Glass,  268. 

Hillard,  on  Hadrian's  villa,  217. 

History  and  fiction,  164. 

Hogarth,  relating  to  the  sale  of  certain 
pictures,  192 ;  his  estimate  of  Reynolds, 
198 ;  impressions  as  to  his  true  voca- 
tion, 258. 

Hogg,  his  neighbors  thought  him  no 
poet,  145. 

Holbein,  German  engraving  in  the  man- 
ner of,  326. 

Hood,  origin  of  the  Song  of  the  Shirt, 
149 ;  what  delighted  him,  155  ;  a  victim 
of  distress  and  melancholy,  321  ;  anec- 
dotes of,  321  ;  lines  on  his  dead  child, 
322  ;  passages  from  letters  to  little  chil- 
dren, 322,  323. 

Hook,  attempt  of  Southey  to  hoax,  200. 

Hooker,  circumstances  of  his  marriage, 
224;  character  of,  by  Izaak  Walton, 
225. 

Home,  Sweet  Home,  205. 

Homer,  called  a  plagiarist,  144;  effect  ol 
his  character  and  genius,  i62> 


INDEX. 


395 


Horace,  a  laborious  writer,  125  ;  passage 

from,  302. 
Howard,  John,  humanity  of,  229;   and 

solitary  confinement,  260. 
Howe,  John,  his  method  of  conducting 

public  fasts,  37. 
Huber,  Frangois,  blindness  of,  259. 
Human    things    compared   to  icebergs, 

109. 
Humboldt,  credits  the  Chinese  with  mag- 
netic carriages,  181. 
Hume,  his  care  in  composition,  126;  his 

history  slow  of  sale  at  first,  133 ;  advice 

to  Robertson,  148. 
Humility  illustrated  by   the   rain-drop, 

344- 
Hunt,  Leigh,  tribute  to  Handel,  228  ;  on 

pseudo-Christianity,  364 ;    remark   on 

Lamb,  383. 
Hyacinthe,   the   church   of   the   future, 

366. 
Hypocrite,  profession  of,  71. 

Ice,  curious  facts  relating  to,  210. 
Iceland,  the  best  building  in,  241. 
Icicles,  formation  of,  209. 
Ideas,  the  few  great,  remain  about  the 

same,  157. 
Ignorance,  17,  18,  19,  20,  27,  28,  29,  30, 

31,32,240,352. 
Incledon,  stories  of  Garrick  and  Foote, 

77- 

Indian  cazique,  story  of,  loi. 

Intellectual  chemistry,  42. 

Invective,  a  primitive  Quaker's,  44. 

Ireland,  baptisms  in,  37. 

Irving,  on  the  habit  of  criticising  govern- 
ment, 25 ;  small  returns  from  his  writ- 
ings, 133  ;  an  observation  on  Gold- 
smith, 187  ;  modesty  and  diffidence  of, 
239 ;  called  a  vagabond  by  a  neighbor, 
239 ;  stealing  liis  own  apples,  239  ;  of 
elaborating  humor,  316;  circumstances 
under  which  he  composed  the  History 
of  New  York,  319. 

Isocrates,  timidity  of,  262. 

Jambson,  Mrs.,  a  story  related  by,  172. 

Java,  flowers,  fruits,  and  trees  of,  301. 

Jeffreys,  portrait  and  conduct  of,  189 ; 
influence  over  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  247. 

Jenner,  persecution  of,  202. 

Jenyns,  described  by  Cumberland,  236. 

Jerome,  St.,  legend  of  St.  John  recorded 
by,  359- 

Jerrold,  Douglas,  his  dislike  of  the  thea- 
tre behind  the  scenes,  i ;  of  the  prac- 
tical benevolence  of  a  London  trades- 
man, 81  ;  ambitious  to  write  a  treatise 
on  philosophy,  261  ;  the  Caudle  Lect- 
ures, 316. 

Jews,  curious  persecution  of  the,  203. 
oan  of  Arc,  Shakespeare's  and  Schiller's, 
174. 

Johnson,  reply  to  Boswell  as  to  ihe  in- 
decency 01  a  statue,  i ;  his  opinion  of 
remarks    by   Orrery  aud    Dclany  on 


Swift,  2;  his  hatred  ot  baby-talk,  50: 
a  remark  on  marriage,  62;  opinion  of 
feeling  people,  98;  opinion  01  levelers, 
105  ;  Life  of,  at  first  slow  of  sale,  133 ; 
Cumberland  on,  142  ;  how  he  was  once 
made  happy,  143 ;  opinion  of  Milton's 
sonnets,  146;  criticises  Swift,  Gray, 
and  Sterne,  146;  opinion  of  Lycidas, 
147;  a  neglect  of  the  great,  151;  of 
Shakespeare,  152  ;  Dr.  Campbeirs  esti- 
mate of,  153  ;  remark  to  Mrs.  Macau- 
lay,  16S;  version  of  Pope's  Messiah, 
176 ;  reviewer's  remark  on,  190 ;  paint- 
er's confession  to,  199 ;  of  Deino^ 
thenes  Taylor,  212  ;  tnbute  to  Savage, 
236 ;  poverty  and  companionships  of 
243  ;  belief  in  ghosts,  243  ;  a  peculiarity 
of,  244  ;  a  famous  speech  of  Pitt,  248; 
speeches  of  Chesterfield,  246  ;  collected 
sermons,  248  ;  a  number  of  the  Ram- 
bler, 248  ;  Ramblers  written  rapidly, 
248 ;  confidence  in  Psalmanazar,  250  ; 
bigotry  of,  257;  learned  Dutch  after 
he  was  seventy,  267;  first  acting  of 
Goldsmith's  comedy,  270  ;  melancholy 
of,  316  ;  of  Pope  and  his  writings,  317 ; 
of  Young  and  his  writings,  317;  of  the 
Christian  religion.  370. 
Jones,   Paul,  and  Thomson's    Seasons, 

Joubert,  a  thought  of,  i ;  his  habit  as  a 
writer,  127. 

Journalism,  impersonal,  241. 

Judkins,  Juke,  reminiscences  of,  81. 

Junius,  warns  the  king,  298. 

Jupiter  and  Cupid,  296 ;  imaginary  proc- 
lamation by,  374. 

Kane,  Dr.,  curious  experience  with  the 

Esquimaux,  102  ;  of  frost  iu  the  Arc* 

tic  region,  301. 
Kant,  a  curious  fact  of,  251. 
Kean,    Edmund,    wretchedness    of    his 

early  life,  124;    how  he  studied  and 

slaved,  131. 
Kemble,  John,  reply  to  Northcote,  15; 

as  to  his  new  readings  of  Hamlet,  131. 
Kempis,   Thomas   k,  of  simplicity  and 

purity,  345 ;   of  charity  and  humility, 

372  ;  of  amending  our  own  faults,  374. 
King,  Dr.,  on  toleration,  383. 
Kinglake,   care   in  the  composition    of 

Eothen,  128. 
Kingsley,  Charles,  of  his  father,  151 
Kneller,  Sir  Godfrey,  remark  to  a  sitteg 

13- 
Knives  and  forks,  ridiculed  by  Ben  Jon- 

son  and  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  20a. 
Knowledge  reserved,  240. 
Kotzebue,  relating  to,  257. 

Labor,  life's  blessing,  121. 

La  Bruyfere,  of  judging  men,  2  ;  of  diver 
sity,  6;  some  thoughts  01,24;  on  tha 
mixture  of  good  and  evil,  73  ;  eloquent 
passage  of,  2 19. 

La  Fontaine,  always  copying  and  recop7< 


396 


INDEX. 


ing,  126 ;  dull  and  stupid  in  conversa- 
tion, 260. 

Lais,  the  courtezan,  saying  of,  41. 

Lamartine,  a  strange  statement  relating 
to,  256. 

Lamb,  remark  on  covetousness,  73 ;  dis- 
section of  meanness,  81 ;  anecdote  of 
George  Dyer,  88 ;  doing  good  by 
stealth,  89 ;  story  of  an  India-house 
clerk,  100;  care  in  composition,  127; 
anecdote  of,  134;  criticises  Faust,  146; 
tribute  to  Manningj  150  ;  essay  on  the 
Origin  of  Roast  Pig,  169 ;  could  spit 
upon  Howard's  statue,  260  ;  first  acting 
of  Mr.  H.,  272  ;  hopeful  letter  to 
Manning,  273  ;  hisses  his  own  bant- 
ling, 274  ;  another  letter  to  Manning, 
not  so  hopeful,  275  ;  poor  Elia,  275  ; 
constitutional  melancholy  of,  316. 

Lamb,  Mary,  Hazlitt's  estimate  of,  267. 

Landor,  eyes  of  critics  on  one  side,  4 ;  of 
Shakespeare  and  Milton,  152  ;  of  Crom- 
well and  Milton,  152  ;  of  the  estimation 
of  the  great  by  their  contemporaries, 
153 ;  of  Swift,  Addison,  Rabelais,  La 
Fontaine  and  Pascal,  315;  of  Aspasia 
and  Pericles,  347  ;  the  falsehood  of  life, 
364 ;  of  looking  down  on  ourselves,  372. 

Lansdowne,  phrenologist's  judgment  of, 
188. 

Lardner,  curious  facts  of,  266. 

La  Rochefoucauld,  his  Maxims  criticised 
by  Sterling,  2 ;  reference  to  his  Max- 
ims, 12;  care  in  composition,  129;  an 
unselfish,  brave,  humane  man,  234. 

Last  Rose  of  Summer,  204. 

Latimer,  Tenterden-Steeple  and  Good- 
win Sands,  18. 

Laud,  cruelty  of,  363. 

Lavater,  judgment  of  Lord  Anson,  189; 
duped  by  Cagliostro,  258. 

Lay,  Benjamin,  an  enthusiast,  anecdote 
of,  367. 

Layard,  nature  breaking  out  in  a  party 
of  Arabs,  48  ;  engravings  on  Nineveh, 
178  ;  lens  found  in  Nineveh,  181 ;  tra- 
dition of  Nimrod  and  the  gnat,  302. 

Lecky,  witchcraft  in  England,  56;  opin- 


ion of  Hooker,  225;j^eat  and  multi- 
form  influences  of 
thropy,  372. 


form  influences  of   Christian  philan- 


Legends  and  parables :  a  Brahman  turned 
into  a  monkey,  49;  Moses  and  the 
dwellei-s  by  the  Dead  Sea,  49;  the  red- 
breast, and  how  it  was  singed,  55  ;  the 
man  in  the  moon,  79;  man  and  woman 
in  the  moon,  79;  Gertrud  bird,  the 
woodpecker,  79 ;  the  Wandering  Jew, 
80 ;  th'j  Brahman  and  the  three  rogues, 
296;  Og,  a  king  of  Bashan,  298;  Nim- 
rod an  1  the  gnat,  302 ;  Gabriel  and  the 
idol-worshiper,  346;  St.  John  in  the 
arms  of  his  disciples,  359 ;  blind  men 
and  the  elephant,  379 ;  St.  Brendan 
*nd  Judas  Iscariot,  387  ;  Abraham 
and  the  old  man  v  ho  worshiped  the 
fire  only,  3S8. 


Leighton,  a  clergyman,  persecution  of 

363  • 
Le  Notre  and  Louis  XIV.,  167. 
Le  Sage,  poverty  of,  134. 
Leslie,  anecdote  of  Owen  and  Wilbei* 

force,  92. 
Lessing,  the  restless  instinct  for  truth, 

32. 
Levelers,  remark  of  Johnson  on,  105. 
Life,  every  year  of  a  wise  man's,  8;  a 

series  of  surprises,  24 ;  knowledge  o^ 

353  ;  beginning  and  end  of,  353 ;  stanza 

on,  356. 
Lilli  Burlero,  ballad  of,  204. 
Lilliput,  the  mighty  emperor  of,  28. 
Lincoln,  his  dislike  of  being  preached  to, 

^4;  how  he  earned  his  fitst  dollar,  122; 

idea  the  slaves  had  of  him,  314;  the 

reason  he  gave  for  not  uniting  himself 

to  any  church,  386. 
Linnaeus,  cuiious  facts  relating  to,  235 
Liston,  a  confirmed  hypochondriac,  315. 
Livingstone,  exclamation  of  Sekwebu  at 

seeing  the  sea,  19 ;  tribe  of  good  Afri- 

cans,  102. 
Livy,  on  curing  public  evils,  26. 
Llandaff,  Bishop  of,  anecdote  of,  121. 
Lloyd,  his  remedy  for  madness,  267. 
Locke,  of  the  king  of  Siam,  loi. 
Lockhart,  wrote  the  first  of  the  Noctes 

papers,  255. 
Longfellow,  lines  from  Hiawatha,  299. 
Lovelace  and  Suckling,  266. 
Lowell,  definition  of  common  sense,  7; 

Montaigne     and     Shakespeare,     12 ; 

witchcraft,  61. 
Lucian,  a  pretty  passage  in  one  of  his 

dialogues,  296. 
Lucretius,  his  one  poem,  125. 
Luther,  a  violent  saint  sometimes,  45  ; 

what  Heine  said  of  him,  47 ;  what  ne 

said  of  himself,  47 ;  and  the  devil,  204 ; 

believed  in  ghosts,  243  ;  relations  with 

Erasmus,  308;  opinion  of  Erasmus,  309; 

with  Melancthon  in  the  pulpit,  310. 

Mabillon,  a  genius  by  an  accident,  226. 

Macaulay,  conduct  of  a  nephew  of,  25 ; 
a  laborious  writer,  129;  Machiavelli, 
233  ;  Byron,  298 ;  times  of  Cromwell 
and  Charles  IL,  304,  305,  306  ;  ethics 
of  Charles  II. ;  hanging  of  Aikenhead, 
362.^ 

Machiavelli,  of  judging  by  appearances, 
71 ;  a  zealous  republican,  233  ;  curioua 
facts  relating  to,  233. 

Mackenzie,  Henry,  his  advice  to  Burns, 
145  ;  a  hard-headed,  practical  man,  255. 

Mackenzie,  Sir  George,  an  advocate  ol 
solitude,  244. 

Mahagam,  ruins  of,  222. 

Mahomet,  turns  a  misfortune  to  advant- 
age, 66. 

Maintenon,  Madame  de,  to  her  niece, 
336. 

Maistre,  Xavier  de,  on  self-love,  la ;  01 
people  fancying  themselves  ill,  76. 


INDEX. 


397 


Malherbe.  how  he  composed  126 ;  anec- 
dotes 01,  126. 

Mallet,  a  curious  fact  relating  to,  256. 

Man,  like  a  certain  statue,  2;  like  a  bit 
of  Labrador  spar,  3  ;  a  noble  animal, 
3;  his  own  chiefest  flatterer,  13;  most 
apt  to  believe  what  he  least  under- 
stands, 17;  lives  blindly,  23;  tries  to 
pass  for  more  than  he  is,  27 ;  a  terrible 
Voltaic  pile,  33  ;  some  devil  and  some 
God  in  him,  42  ;  who  succeeds,  46 ; 
a  curious  object  for  microscopic  study, 
63;  a  natural  reformer,  90 ;  persuada- 
bility  of,  103  ;  when  he  is  powerful, 
105 ;  the  fittest  place  where  he  can 
die,  120;  when  he  becomes  conscious 
of  a  higher  self,  355;  naturally  relig- 
ious, 368. 

Mandeville,  an  observation  by,  346. 

Man-mendine,  mania  of,  103. 

Marat,  kept  doves,  99. 

Marlborough,  avarice  of,  264 ;  meanness 
of,  264. 

Marlowe,  Peele,  and  Greene,  249. 

Marseillaise,  origin  of  the,  205. 

Marvell,  pride  and  independence  of,  139. 

Mather,  Cotton,  epithets  he  applied  to 
the  Quakers,  44 ;  account  of  the  trial 
of  Mary  Johnson  for  withcraft,  58  ; 
the  panic  he  created  in  New  England, 
60. 

Mathews,  curious  anecdote  by,  207. 

Mayflower,  a  slave-ship,  241. 

Meanness,  a  study  and  an  analysis  of, 
81. 

Medhurst,  Chinese  opinions  of  Christians 
reported  by,  loi. 

Melancthon,  approved  of  the  burning  of 
Servetus,  258  ;  with  Luther  in  the  pul- 
pit, 310. 

Melmoth,  on  thinking  authors,  15S. 

Menander,  proverb  from,  quoted  by  St. 
Paul,  160. 

Mencius,  on  the  disease  of  men,  95. 

Merck,  and  the  Grand  Duke,  89. 

Mercury  and  Jove,  92. 

Mesmerism,  very  old,  183. 

Meyer,  curious  fact  related  by,  302. 

Michelet,  his  horror  of  the  sea,  252. 

Middleton,  stories  of  Cicero,  16,  215. 

Migne,  Abbd,  curious  cruelties  referred 

to  by,  go- 
Milan  cathedral,  196. 

Mill,  curious  omission  ofj  266. 

Miller,  strange  fact  relating  to,  267. 

Mills  of  God,  10^. 

Milton,  his  care  in  composition,  126;  and 
Paradise  Lost,  147  ;  De  Quincey's  es- 
timate of,  152;  of  lyric  and  epic  poets, 
348- 

Mirabeau,  ujjliness  and  attractiveness  of, 
359 ;  his  distrust  of  popular  applause, 

»97- 
Miser,  characterized  by  Colton.    r2 ;    a 
saying  of  Foote,  72  ;  effect  of  his  noard- 
ing  habits  illustrated,  73  ;  an  observa- 
tioD  of  Lamb,  73. 


Misfortunes  never  come  singly,  299. 

Molifere,  on  the  proffession  of  hypocrite, 
71 ;  his  slowness  as  a  writer,  127  ;  used 
one  of  his  servants  as  critic,  149 ;  a 
grave  and  silent  man,  316. 

Money-getter  analyzed,  71,  72. 

Monod,  of  the  conduct  of  certain  mis- 
sionaries, 56. 

Montagu,  Basil,  prejudice,  the  spider  of 
the  mind,  376. 

Montagu,  Lady  Mary  Wortley,  of  the 
Duchess  of  Marlborough,  34 ;  her  crit- 
icism of  women,  34;  obloquy  she  en- 
dured, 20  r. 

Montaigne,  difference  in  opinions,  5;  tit 
laws  and  events,  6 :  action  of  seeing 
outward,  12 ;  a  pattern  within  our 
selves,  22;  the  virtue  of  the  soul,  23: 
curing  public  evils,  25 ;  conduct  of 
lecturers  in  the  courts  of  philosophy, 
41 ;  nature  starting  up,  47  ;  how  esti- 
mated by  his  neighbors,  154;  faith  in 
physicians,  20S  ;  the  fairest  lives,  in  his 
opinion,  346 ;  the  thoughts  and  actions 
of  man,  375  ;  on  distrusting  our  own 
judgments,  382. 

Montespan,  Madame  de,  to  Madame  de 
Maintenon,  34;  rigorous  devotion  o^ 
268. 

Montesquieu,  a  laborious  writer,  125. 

Moore,  the  lady  and  the  second  volume 
of  the  Life  of  Byron,  by,  54 ;  seventy 
lines  a  week's  work  for,  128  ;  pride  and 
independence  of,  140 ;  story  of  the 
jeweled  lady,  165 ;  trick  of  Father 
Prout  at  the  expense  of,  176;  of  Scott 
and  Waverley,  igi  ;  and  the  opera  of 
Tarare,  221;  and  Lalla  Rookh,  251; 
of  the  authorship  of  the  Junius  let- 
ters, 257 ;  statement  relating  to  Sheri- 
dan, 267. 

More,  Hannah,  her  opinion  of  Milton's 
sonnets,  146. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  a  fierce  persecutor, 

245- 
Morris,  Robert,  imprisoned  for  debt,  256 
Mosheim,  a  sentence  from  an  old  album, 

347- 

Mother  Goose  s  Melodies,  206. 

Motley,  effects  of  the  gout  of  Charles 
v.,  8  ;  Luther  when  angry,  47  ;  Rad- 
bod  and  Bishop  Wolfran,  100 ;  the 
Netherlands,  107  ;  long  live  the  beg- 
gars! 110;  Erasmus  and  Luther,  308. 

Mozart,  declaration  of,  30 ;  his  estimate 
of  Handel,  228. 

Miiller,  Max,  of  children's  fables,  i6c  ; 
when  a  man  becomes  conscious  of  a 
higher  self,  355  ;  of  Christianity,  370. 

Nanac,  the  holy,  and  the  Moslem  priest, 
368. 

Napoleon,  what  he  said  of  Corneille, 
153  ;  a  thing  that  puzzled  him,  170; 
and  Madame  de  Stael,  253 ;  his  fond- 
ness for  Ossian,  261 ;  remark  to  Bour 
rienne,  297. 


398 


INDEX. 


Nature,  goes  her  own  way,  103. 

Neander,  and  Plutarch's  Pedagogue, 
265. 

Nero,  sensitive  to  poetry  and  music,  33. 

Netherlands,  the,  Motley's  description 
of,  107. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  confesses  his  igno- 
rance, 30 ;  his  character  illustrated,  105, 
106,  107 ;  neglected  as  a  lecturer,  133  ; 
the  story  of  the  falling  apple,  176;  a 
poor  accountant,  263  ;  as  a  poet,  264. 

Newton,  John,  to  the  woman  in  prison, 

5S- 
NichoUs,  a  sensual  clergyman,  43. 
Nimrod  and  the  gnat,  302. 
NoUekens  and  the  widow,  9. 
Norris,  John,  self-love,  13 ;  our  passions, 

47- 
Northcote,  and  the  pedantic  coxcomb, 
I  ;  blaming  himself  to  Kemble,  15 ;  of 
two  of  his  pictures,  190 ;  of  the  con- 
ceited painter  in  the  Sistine  Chapel, 
197. 

Clap's  mode  of  converting  Eyvind,  52. 

Old  Hundred,  204. 

Old  Oa'.cen  Bucket,  248. 

Opinions,  no  two  alike,  5 ;  human,  the 
history  of,  7 ;  bundles  of  contradic- 
tions, 8 ;  of  the  same  men  at  different 
times,  8. 

Orrery,  Lord,  story  of  Swift,  170. 

Owen,  Robert,  reply  to  Wilberforce,  on 
putting  off  the  happiness  of  mankind, 
92. 

Oyster-eating,  first  act  of,  i6g. 

Paley,  what  he  thought  of  Tristram 
Shandy,  147. 

Palgrave,  anecdotes  of  Abd-el-Lateef, 
383. 

Panis,  devoted  to  pheasants,  gg. 

Pantisocracy,  Coleridge's  Utopia,  102. 

Paracelsus,  persecution  of,  201. 

Paradise  and  Paris,  308. 

Paradise  Lost,  slow  sale  of,  133. 

Park,  Mungo,  and  the  sable  chief,  27. 

Pascal,  of  vanity,  13 ;  on  our  love  of 
wearing  disguises,  66  ;  maxims  of  con- 
duct, 159;  twenty  days  perfecting  one 
letter,  126  ;  vanity  of  the  world,  240 ; 
Solomon  and  Job  on  human  misery, 
337  ;  the  present  never  the  mark  of 
our  designs,  339 ;  a  great  advantage  of 
rank,  353  ;  remark  on  the  ambition  of 
Cssar,  353 ;  the  two  extremities  of 
knowledge,  354  ;  maxims  and  first  prin- 
ciples subject  to  revolution,  360;  the 
choice  of  a  profession,  377. 

Paul,  St.,  effects  of  his  preaching  at  Eph- 
esus,  362. 

Paul,  Jean,  a  curious  fact  about  sheep, 
296  ;  his  comic  romance,  Nicholas 
Margraf,  318. 

Paul  and  Virginia,  pronounced  a  fail- 
ure, 148  ;  origin  of  an  English  transla- 
tion ot,  24S. 


Payne,  and  Home,  Sweet  Home,  aoj. 
Peele,  Greene,  and  Marlowe,  249. 
Penn,  a  curious  statement  relating  t(^ 

^57-       .... 

Pepys,   his  opinion  of    Hudibras,  146 
the  poor  widow  in  Holland,  325. 

Pericles  and  Aspasia,  41. 

Persian,  passage  from  the,  344- 

Persius,  chastity  and  modesty  oi  261. 

Peruvian  bark,  an  invention  of  the  devil 
201. 

Peterborough,  of  F^nelon,  373. 

Petrarch,    his    sonnets,    190;    despised 
Dante,    igg ;   a  curious   fact  of,   253 
an  exclamation  of,  355. 

Petrified  trees  in  the  Andes,  108. 

Phadrus,  apologue  of  the  two  sacks,  374 

Phidias,  his  reported  service  to  Periclesi 
41 ;  his  sitting  statue  of  Jupiter,  261. 

Philanthropic  man,  a,  not  a  philanthro- 
pist, 113-  . 

Philanthropists,  malicious,  anecdotes  of, 
96,  97. 

Philanthropy,  traders  in,  wrong  in  head 
or  heart,  97. 

Philip  in.  and  Don  Quixote,  314. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  on  borrowing  in  liter- 
ature, 162  ;  on  the  lost  arts,  177;  curi- 
ous statements  relating  to,  237. 

Philosophy,  molecular,  6. 

Pitt,  authorsliip  of  a  famous  speech  of, 
24S. 

Plague,  curious  superstitions  as  to  the 
cause  of  the,  203. 

PlatOj  evidence  of  great  care  in  the  com- 
position of  his  Republic,  125  ;  accused 
of  envy,  lying,  etc.,  144 ;  timidity  of, 
262. 

Playfair,  a  strange  fact  of,  258. 

Plays  of  the  stage  and  of  literature,  207. 

Pliny,  opinion  of  the  Christian  religion, 
266 ;  questions  nature,  337 ;  a  custom 
of  the  Thracians,  339. 

Plutarch,  of  self-love,  13  ;  without  a  bio- 
graphy, 262  ;  strange  omission  of,  265 ; 
learned  Latin  after  he  was  seventy, 
267;  on  the  universality  of  religion, 
368. 

Poe,  of  God  and  the  soul,  32 ;  and  the 
Swedenborgians,  1S8 ;  the  grand  duke 
of  Weimar's  criticism  of  the  Raven, 
317  ;  lines  by,  329 ;  what  he  thought  a 
strong  argument  for  the  religion  of 
Christ,  359. 

Pompadour,  Madame  de,  and  Caidinil 
Bernis,  268  ;  her  life  an  improbable 
romance,  336. 

Pompey,  career  and  end  of,  222. 

Pontifical  army,  soldiers  of  the,  241. 

Pope,  of  every  year  of  a  wise  man's  life, 
8 ;  opinion  of  Newton,  107 ;  an  un- 
weaned  corrector,  126  ;  tradition  of 
at  Twickenham,  154;  anecdote  of,  168 
Johnson's  Latin  version  of  his  Me» 
siah,  176;  and  Gay  and  Arbuthnot, 
fate  of  a  joint  play  of,  255;  timidity 
of,  262. 


INDEX. 


399 


Poussin,  reply  to  a  person  of  rank,  121 ; 
story  told  of,  175;  reply  to  Cardinal 
Mancini,  349. 

Poverty,  fine  horror  of,  73 ;  and  parts, 
121;  necessary  to  success  121;  amus- 
ing evidence  of,  124. 

Prayei  the,  said  to  have  been  in  use  by 
the  Jfws  for  four  thousand  years,  185. 

PreafJiing,  remarks  of  Thoreau  00,94; 
Lincoln's  horror  of  being  preached  to, 
94 ;  virtue  takes  no  pupi^,  95. 

Presbyterian  Holdenough  and  Episco- 
palian Rochecliffe,  366. 

Prescott,  of  the  Aztec  priests,  33  ;  a  state 
ment  of,  240. 

Procter,  of  Lamb's  tragedy,  272. 

Protogenes,  and  Apelles,  171. 

Prout,  Father,  and  Moore,  176. 

Psalmanazar  and  Johnson,  250. 

Public  opinion,  71,  361. 

Publius  Syrus,  sayings  of,  48,  158,  226. 

Puritanism  in  New  England,  36. 

Pyramids,  story  of  the  erection  of  one 
of  them,  253. 

Pythagoras,  a  curious  statement  relating 
to,  250. 

Rabelais,  a  strange  fact  relating  to, 
190;  knew  Rome,  308. 

Racine  and  Louis  XIV.,  134. 

Radbod,  at  the  baptismal  font,  100 ;  de- 
clines the  Christian's  heaven,  100. 

Radclifie,  Mrs.,  an  interesting  fact  of, 

2^5- 

Railroads  and  rain,  209. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  133. 

Randolph,  John,  his  first  public  speech, 
264. 

Raphael,  story  of  and  Michel  Angelo, 
171;  his  Transfiguration,  197. 

Rawlinson,  the  stone  he  brought  from 
Nineveh,  179. 

R^camier,  Madame,  and  Madame  de 
Stael,  172  ;  sits  and  muses  on  the  shore 
of  the  ocean,  336. 

Reformers,  stories  of,  96,  97. 

Reigu  of  Terror,  incident  during  the, 
40. 

Religion,  a  subject  proscribed  in  general 
oocietv,  242  ;  if  charity  were  made  the 
principle  of  it  instead  of  faith,  357; 
two  religions,  the  religion  of  amity 
and  the  religion  of  enmity,  365. 

Kenous  and  his  caterpillars,  267. 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  story  related  of, 
174;    his  colors  fading,  179;  inquires 
in  the  Vatican  for  the  works  of  Raph- 
ael, 197 ;  critical  remark  of,  197 ;  and 
Hogarth,   197 ;    his  portrait  of    Bott, 
alongside  of  Goldsmith,  200. 
Richard  Coeur  de  Lion  and  Saladin,  180. 
Richardson,  man's  resemblance  to  a  stat- 
ue made  to  stand  against  a  wall,  2. 
Right,  too  rigid,   hardens   into   wrong, 

Robertson,  F.  W.,  from  his  sermon  on 
the  Tongue,  365. 


Robertson,  advised  against  writing  hi* 
history  of  Charles  V  ,  148. 

Robespierre,  defends  Franklin's  light- 
ning-rods, 203  ;  and  Frederick,  23S  ; 
what  was  found  in  his  desk,  256 ;  Ma- 
dame Roland  to,  29S. 

Robinson,  Henry  Crabb,  his  partiality 
for  the  Book  of  Revelation,  20 ;  how 
he  reconciled  himself  to  his  ignorance, 
29 ;  rebuke  of  spiritual  pride,  52 ;  the 
Mahometan's  heaven  and  the  Chris- 
tian's hell,  55  ;  his  opinion  of  Bftwards' 
Original  Sin,  56;  Jeffrey's  portrait, 
i8q  ;  at  the  Fountain  of  Arethusa,  302. 

Robinson,  Robert,  remark  of  relating  to 
the  Trinity,  20;  Dyer's  biography  of, 
284. 

Rochester,  Lord,  the  last  year  of  the  life 
of,  236. 

Rodgers,  Judge,  the  dying  Scotsman'* 
tribute  to  Bums,  174. 

Rogers,  his  care  in  composition,  129  ; 
his  proposition  to  Wordsworth,  137; 
remark  on  Sydney  Smith,  151 ;  anec- 
dote of  relating  to  Dryden,  154  ;  amus- 
ing incident  of,  155;  pretty  story  of  a 
little  girl,  359. 

Roland,  Madame,  to  Robespierre,  298. 

RoUo,  Duke  of  Normandy,  story  told  of, 
165. 

Roman  emperor,  curious  use  of  the  mar- 
ble head  of  a,  302. 

Romanianus,  with  only  a  name,  262. 

Rome,  a  bitter  republican's  opinion  of, 
307. 

Rosch,  on  effects  of  occupation  on  the 
mind,  37S. 

Rough  and  Godwin,  311. 

Rousseau,  a  saying  of,  103  ;  and  Voltaire, 
19S ;  cause  of  his  cynicism,  245 ;  a 
painstaking  writer,  24S ;  fancied  him- 
selJE  the  object  of  all  men's  hatred, 
259 ;  his  preaching  and  his  practice, 
26S. 

Rubens,  a  complaint  of,  30. 

Rulhi^re,  story  of  a  Russian  frienj  of, 
77;  and  Madame  Geoffrin,  170;  guilty 
of  only  one  wickedness,  373. 

Ruskin  to  his  students,  179. 

Russell,  Lord  John,  his  definition  of  a 
proverb,  159. 

Rutherford,  Samuel,  and  Archbishop 
Usher,  357. 

Saadi,  the  traveler  and  the  bag  of  pearls, 
122  ;  description  of  a  drink,  184  ;  verse 
of  the  elephant-driver,  372;  reply  of 
the  piece  of  scented  clay,  373 ;  Abra- 
ham and  the  old  man  who  worshiped 
the  fire  only,  387. 

Sachs,  of  earth  and  heaven,  325. 

Sainte-Beuve,  fastidiousness  as  a  writer, 
126. 

Saint  Simon,  story  of  two  sisters,  34; 
of  the  dying  duchess,  75. 

Saladin  and  Richard  Coeur  de  LioR,  180. 

Sanson,  the  hereditary  executioner,  259. 


400 


INDEX. 


Saurin,  advice  to  Montesquieu,  148. 

Savage,  corrects  a  lady's  judgment  of 
Thomson,  188  ;  tribute  of  Johnson  to, 
236 ;  with  Johnson  all  night  in  London 
streets,  243. 

Saxe,  Marshal,  his  terror  of  a  cat,  244. 

Scaliger,  his  opinion  of  Montaigne,  147; 
a  peculiarity  of,  244 ;  diiBculty  in  com- 
municating his  knowledge,  25S. 

Scaramouche,  snufE  of  a  thousand  flow- 
ers, 300. 

ScarpU,  of  the  English,  Scotch  and 
Irish,  302. 

Scarron,  wretchedness  of,  320. 

Schedone,  of  a  painting  by,  326. 

Schiller,  Indian  Death  Song,  147 ;  Joan 
of  Arc,  Don  Carlos,  and  Teli,  174  ;  the 
scent  of  rotten  apples  a  necessity  to, 
244;  a  curious  fact  relating  to,  251. 

Scott,  story  of  a  placid  minister  near 
Dundee,  50 ;  how  estimated  by  his 
neighbors,  144;  failure  of  Waverley 
predicted,  14S  ;  Campbell  and  Hohen- 
linden,  150;  Burns  and  the  mouse,  150; 
meeting  of  Richard  and  Saladin,  180; 
how  he  discovered  his  talents,  igi ;  the 
authorship  of  Old  Mortality,  201 ;  nev- 
er saw  Melrose  Abbey  by  moonlight, 
251;  remarkable  industry  of,  266;  a 
sad  bit  of  self- portraiture,  317;  a 
strange  fact  relating  to  the  Bride  of 
Lammermoor,  318. 

Scott,  General,  a  sculptoi-'s  story  of,  173. 

Seeing,  limits  to,  12;  action  of  seeing 
outward,  12. 

Selden,  a  remark  on  marriage,  240. 

Selwyn,  his  reply  on  being  charged  with 
a  want  of  feeling,  53  ;  of  vices  becom- 
ing necessities,  65. 

Seneca,  an  usurer  with  seven  millions, 
24s ;  a  maxim  of,  349. 

Shakespeare,  Johnson's  tribute  to,  152. 

Sharp,  on  the  difficulty  of  doing  good, 
22. 

Shelley,  sighs  to  Leigh  Hunt,  357. 

Shenstone,  splendid  misery  of,  246. 

Sheridan,  sarcasm  upon  Cumberland,  8  ; 
fastidiousness  as  a  writer,  127  ;  how  he 
elaborated  his  wit,  129;  a  curious  fact 
of,  267. 

*;herlock,  consolation  for  the  shortness  of 
life,  332. 

Siddons,  Mrs.,  confesses  her  ignorance, 
30. 

Sidney,  Algernon,  remark  of  Evelyn  re- 
lating to,  189. 

Silenus,  of  Jove  and  Mercury,  92. 

Simonides,  replies  to  Hiero,  31,  348;  fa- 
ble of  the  crab  and  the  snake,  364. 

Small-pox,  goddess  of,  worshiped  and 
burned  in  China,  36. 

Smith,  Adam,  a  laborious  writer,  129. 

Smith,  Sydney,  how  he  was  cured  of 
shyness,  15 ;  his  objection  to  Scotch 
philosophers,  93  ;  advice  to  the  Bishop 
of  New  Zealand,  99;  the  Suckling 
Act,  103 ;  remark  to  liis  brother,  169 ;  a 


phrenologist  pronounces  him  a  great 
naturalist,  188  ;  authorship  of  the 
Plymley  Letters,  201  ;  resorted  to 
Dante  for  solace,  267 ;  on  getting  hu« 
man  beings  together  who  ought  to  be 
together,  341.  _ 

Smollett  and  his  dependents,  199;  pri- 
vate character  of,  245. 

Socrates,  reply  to  Menon,  6 ;  the  hardest 
of  all  trades,  25  ;  called  illiterate,  144 ; 
to  his  judges,  174;  idolatry  of,  243; 
timidity  of,  262 ;  a  poor  accountant, 
263 ;  learned  music  after  he  was  sev 
enty,  267 ;  enlargement  of  a  thought 
of,  374- 

Solomon,  there  is  no  new  thing,  186;  I'is 
wicked  son,  247 ;  what  he  said  of 
laughter,  314. 

Somerset,  duke  of,  69. 

Sophocles^  considered  a  lunatic,  144. 

Soul,  purification  of  the,  illustrated  by 
the  old  coin,  388. 

Southey,  story  of  Vergara  and  the  sev- 
enth commandment,  17;  to  Cottle  of 
the  meanness  of  an  Englishman  at 
Lisbon,  88 ;  not  ashamed  of  his  radical- 
ism, 104 ;  declines  the  editorship  of 
the  Times,  141 ;  unknown  to  his 
neighbors,  145  ;  on  certain  famous  lit- 
erary works,  199 ;  attempt  to  hoax 
Hook,  200. 

Souvestre,  virtue  takes  no  pupils,  95  ; 
philosophizes  on  the  carnival,  299 ;  the 
small  dwelling  joy  can  live  in,  348; 
awards  the  palm  to  moderation,  348  ; 
rest  in  an  eternal  childhood,  353. 

Spencer,  the  religion  of  amity  and  the 
religion  of  enmity,  365. 

Spenser,  poverty  of,  134;  story  told  of, 
166. 

Spinoza,  declines  a  present,  142 ;  perse- 
cuted by  the  jews,  254. 

Spiritualism,  very  old,  182. 

Stanley,  Dean,  story  of  Rutherford  and 
Usher,  357. 

Statue,  doubtful  sex  of  a,  187. 

St.  Bartholomew,  conduct  of  ladies  at 
the  massacre  of,  35. 

Steele,  one  of  his  Tatlers  referred  to, 
169 ;  Miss  Prue,  246 ;  castle-builders, 
330 ;  on  Christianity,  372  ;  epitaph  by, 
382. 

Sterling,  criticises  Rochefoucauld's  Max- 
ims, 2;  on  seeking  perfect  virtue,  90; 
there  will  always  be  errors  to  mourn 
over,  91. 

Sterne,  conscience  not  a  law,  22  ;  on  the 
affectation  of  gravity,  70 ;  an  incessant 
corrector,  129;  the  sermon  in  Tristram 
Shandy,  192  ;  the  charge  of  plagiar- 
ism  against,  259. 

Story  of  the  lady  and  her  three  lovers, 
173- 

St.  Peter's,  first  view  of,  ig6. 

St.  Pierre,  and  Paul  and  Virginia,  148. 

Stewart,  Dugald,  remark  of,  on  Bacon'i 
Essays,  30. 


INDEX. 


401 


-jingand  Lovelace,  266. 
"Sae,   Eugene,  a  Jesuitess  more  to  be 

dreaded  than  a  Jesuit,  3. 
Suetonius,  of  Calic;ula's  horse,  99  ;  how 

he  regarded  .Christians,  266. 
Sully,  story  told  of,  and  the  veiled  lady, 

i66. 
Surrey,  Earl  of,  lines  by,  326. 
Swift,  on    men's  opinions,  8 ;  story  of 

and  four  clergymen  in  canonicals,  172; 

BoHngbroke  to,  214  ;  some  thoughts  of, 

214  ;  anticipates  his  death,  214 ;  to  Bol- 

ingbroke,  246;   irony  and  seriousness 

of,  312;   never  known  to  smile,   315; 

just    religion  enough  to  make  us  hate, 

364. 
Sydenham,  poverty  of,  135- 

Tacitus,  his  opinion  of  the  Christian 
religion,  266. 

Taine,  defines  a  character,  40 ;  of  Puri- 
tanism, 307. 

Talfourd,  and  Lamb's  farce  of  Mr.  H., 
273  ;  anecdotes  of  Dyer,  2S5,  286. 

Talleyrand,  his  reply  to  Madame  de 
Stael,  172  ;  trembled  when  the  word 
death  was  pronounced,  244 ;  his  reply 
to  Rulhiire,  375. 

Tamerlane  and  the  spider,  166. 

Tasso,  an  unwearied  corrector,  126;  pov- 
erty of,  134 ;  a  curious  fact  relating  to, 
247 ;  cause  of  his  insanity.  247. 

Taylor,  Demosthenes,  Johnson's  story 
of,  212. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  arguments  for  humility, 
14  ;  earthen  vessels  better  than  golden 
chalices,  347  ;  our  trouble  from  within, 
349 ;  the  religion  of  Christ,  371 ;  those 
that  need  pity  and  those  that  refuse  to 
pity>  376 ;  01  Abraham  and  the  old 
man  who  worshiped  the  fire  only,  387. 

Tell,  William,  relating  to,  175. 

Temple,  Sir  William,  of  the  old  earl  of 
Norwich,  297;  compares  life  to  wine, 

332- 

Tennyson,  his  care  in  composition,  127. 

Tertullian,  his  mode  of  dissuading  Chris- 
tians from  frequenting  public  specta- 
cles, 54 ;  ideas  of  justice  and  mercy  in 
his  day,  55. 

Thackeray,  the  world  can  pry  us  out, 
but  it  don't  care,  15;  credulity  of  the 
sexes,  20 ;  our  paltry  little  rods  lo  meas- 
ure heaven  immeasurable,  53 ;  a  re- 
flection on  marriage,  62  ;  of  the  dying 
French  duchess,  75 ;  a  reflection  of,  ap- 
plied to  Madame  de  Pompadour,  336; 
toil,  the  condition  of  life,  337. 

Themutocles,  Tbucydides'  remark    on, 

.  379- 

1  T.eophraDtus,  a  lament  of,  30 ;  timidity 
of,  262. 

Thompson,  George,  what  he  saw  in  Cal- 
cutta, i8o. 

Thomson,  a  lady's  opinion  of,  gathered 
from  his  writings,  i38  ;  luxurious  indo- 
Uixce  af,  247. 

26 


Thoreau,  on  doing  good,  93;  goodneM 
tainted,  94 ;  hacking  at  the  branches  of 
evil,  93 ;  personal  independence  o£, 
136. 

Threshing-machines,  first  effect  of,  203. 

Thucydides,  how  he  toiled  on  his  hi»- 
tory,  125  ;  ignorance  bold  and  knowl- 
edge reserved,  240;  a  remark  on  Th»- 
mistocles,  379. 

Thurlow,  and  his  daughter,  247. 

Tiberius,  life  of,  with  two  title-pages,  a. 

Tillotson,  two  wonders  in  heaven,  382. 

Titian,  how  he  painted,  130  ;  colors  of 
compared  with  Reynolds',  179. 

Tomochichi,  would  b^  taught  before  he 
was  baptized,  loi ;  what  he  thought  of 
the  colonists,  101. 

Tooke,  Home,  how  to  be  powerful,  67; 
Beckford's  speech,  252  ;  a  remark  on, 
by  Coleridge,  378. 

Torquemada,  and  the  Inquisition,  46. 

Townshend,  Charles,  and  Fitzherbert, 
211. 

Trench,  of  the  fraud  played  off  on  Vol- 
taire, 176. 

Truth,  as  humanity  knows  it,  4;  the  dif- 
ficulty of  finding  it,  360 ;  it  must  be 
repeated  over  and  over  again,  361  ;  the 
infinite  number  who  persecute  it,  362. 

Tyndall,  of  the  formation  of  icicles,  209. 

Tyrian  purple,  179. 

Tytler,  a  remark  by,  on  Raleigh's  His- 
tory, 135. 

Vah;b  of  an  epithet,  no. 

Vandyck,  portrait  of  a  celebrated  widow 

by,  189. 
Vanity  of  human  judgment,  24 ;  of  the 

world,  240. 
Vauvenargues,   on    curing  the  vices  of 

nature,  91. 
Vere,  Sir  Horace,  what  caused  his  death, 

121. 
Vespasian,  a  story  told  of,  167. 
Vicar  of  Wakefield  and  the  peasant,  31a. 
Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  his  conscientiousness 

as  a  painter,  130;  anecdote  of,  377. 
Virgil,  his  care  in  composition,  125  ;  what 

Pliny  and  Seneca  thought  of  him,  144. 
Virtue,  of  the  soul,  23;  takes  no  pupils, 

95- 

Voltaire,  the  history  of  human  opinions, 
7  ;  upon  what  the  fate  of  a  nation  has 
often  depended,  8 ;  anecdote  of,  8 ;  com- 
pares us  to  a  river,  n  ;  we  on  this 
globe  like  insects  in  a  garden,  18;  corw 
fesses  his  ignorance,  31 ;  of  the  story 
of  Newton  and  the  apple,  176;  the 
forged  Veda,  176;  invention  of  sdssors, 
shirts,  and  socksj  203  ;  Candide's  sufv 
per  at  Venice  with  the  six  kings,  333. 

Vondel,  poverty  of,  134. 

Wallenstein,  faculties  of,  improved  by 

a  fall,  226. 
Waller,  a  laborious  writer,  126;  his  opio- 

ion  of  Paradise  Lost,  147  ;  line»by,  35* 


402 


INDEX. 


Walpole,  Horace,  compares  man  to  a 
butterfly,  19  ;  man  a  ridiculous  animal, 
ao;  opinion  of  the  Divina  Commedia, 
14s  ;  contempt  of  Johnson  and  Gold- 
smith, 145  ;  criticises  Sterne,  Sheridan, 
Spenser,  Chaucer,  Dante,  Montaigne, 
Boswell,  and  Johnsouj  146;  and  Straw- 
berry Hill,  154;  opinion  of  Lord  An- 
son, iSg;  a  curious  fact  of,  258. 

Walton,  Izaak,  quaint  passages  from,  re- 
lating to  Hooker,  225 ;  reply  to  the 
discontented  man,  344. 

Warren,  Samuel,  how  the  critics  mis- 
judged his  first  work,  148. 

Wasmngton,  a  story  related  by,  163  ;  his 
remarkable  gravity,  246. 

Webster,  Daniel,  wrote  and  re-wrote  his 
fine  passages,  132;  the  best  talker  he 
ever  heard,  246. 

Weighing  souls  in  a  literal  balance,  55. 

Wesley,  Charles,  his  son  a  papist,  254. 

Wesley,  John,  on  witchcraft,  59;  and 
Tomochichi,  loi ;  his  belief  in  ghosts, 
243 ;  his  quiescent  turbulence,  261  , 
his  story  of  a  parishioner  who  lived 
on  boiled  parsnips,  382. 

White,  Gilbert,  effect  of  certain  food  on 
a  bullfinch,  10;  differences  in  flocks 
of  sheep,  11  ;  a  strange  propensity  of 
cats,  210;  peculiarity  of  the  tortoise, 
211. 

Wliitefield,  always  improving  his  dis- 
courses, 132  ;  an  exclamation  of,  376. 

Whipple,  on  an  affectation  of  dignity, 
67 ;  of  the  mother  of  Thomas  k  Becket, 
212. 

Wilberforce,  and  Owen's  scheme  of  re- 
form, 92  ;  and  Wendell  Phillips,  237. 

Willemson,  Richard,  martyrdom  of,  51. 

Wilson,  Prof.,  to  the  Ettnck  Shepherd, 
10 ;  thought  to  be  a  madman  in  Glas- 
gow, 145 ;  the  idea  of  the  Noctes  not 
his,  255;  tete-i-tete  with  the  poet 
Camjibell,  267 ;  contest  for  the  profes- 
sorship, 287  ;  first  lecture  in  the  univer- 
sity,_  288 ;  achievements  in  running, 
leaping,  etc.,  289 ;  encounter  with  a 
pugilist,  289 ;  pedestrian  feats,  290 ; 
■cene  in  an  Edinburgh  street,  291 ;  in- 


terferes at  a  prize-fight,  292  ;  describe* 
a  fairy's  f unefal,  293  ;  his  relations  with 
Dr.  Blair,  jio. 

Witchcraft,  Sir  Matthew  Hale's  belief 
in,  57 ;  Sir  Thomas  Browne's  opinion 
of,  57,  terrible  punishment  of,  57  ;  John 
Wesley's  _  belief  in,  59;  Richard  Bax- 
ter a  believer  in,  59;  a  passage  from 
Lowell  on,  61. 

Wither,  George,  wrote  his  Shepherd's 
Hunting  in  prison,  136. 

Wolsey,  credulity  of,  224. 

Woman,  characterized  by  Bums,  3 ;  roi 
ply  of  a  good,  377. 

Woodworth  and  his  famous  song,  248. 

Woolman,  John,  eulogium  upon,  and 
passage  from,  370. 

Wordsworth,  his  care  in  composition, 
128;  his  reply  to  Rogers,  137;  Tobin's 
advice  to,  14S ;  origin  of  the  Ancient 
Mariner,  1^9;  thought  to  be  a  fool  by 
some  of  his  neighbors,  155;  his  de- 
fense of  the  church,  and  his  opinion 
of  the  clergy,  _  257  ;  his  man-servant 
James,  331;  lines  by,  352;  what  he 
said  of  Mrs.  Barbauld's  stanza  on  Life, 

356-  ,       . 

World,  the,  19 ;  on  reforming   it,  90 ;  it 

cannot  keep  quiet,  109. 
Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  his  reply  to  a  bigot, 

372- 
Wycherley,  on  reproving  faults,  364. 

XlMENES,  Cardinal,  a  story  told  of,  167. 

York  minster,  not  appreciated  by  Col^ 

ridge,  196. 
Youatt,  differences  in  flocks  of  sheep,  11. 
Young,  Mr.,  the    prototype  of    Parson 

Adams,  2S5. 
Young,  an  incident  of  Swift,  related  by, 

214;  gayety  of,  245. 
Young,  Dean,  passages  from  his  sermons, 

366,  372. 

Zeal,  a  violent,  that  we  must  correct, 

363- . 
Zenobia,  temple   of,   idealized   by   La 

Bruy&re,  219. 


